


Negligence

by joanna (Dracones95)



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Kidnapping, M/M, Mild Gore, Mildly Dubious Consent, Oral Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Psychological Trauma, Reader-Insert, Stockholm Syndrome, Survivor Guilt, gender neutral reader, mentions of cannibalism, sociopathic tendencies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:34:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26622211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dracones95/pseuds/joanna
Summary: You are a foreign tourist gone hiking into the Whitetail Mountains with a few friends. One night, your party is ambushed by a group of men dressed in strange clothes.Survival at all costs becomes your number one priority.
Relationships: Jacob Seed/Reader
Comments: 10
Kudos: 114





	1. Premise

You're sleeping soundly when the scream cuts into the night, shocking everyone awake, scurrying for their flashlights. The two tents were raised quickly on the flattest terrain you could find, in an opening in the middle of the forest; it was probably your fourth or fifth night in the county, and the deepest you've ever been into the forests covering the Whitetail Mountains. You recognize the voice belonging to one of the occupants of the other tent, a girl a few years younger than you, choked and panicked. The first thought that crosses your mind, slowed down by sleep, is that an animal, perhaps a skunk, had somehow found their way into their tent and startled them; you find the flashlight you were keeping close to your pillow and click it on just as the sound of footsteps reaches your ears. 

Suddenly, the canvas splits open, ripped through by an arrowhead, and falls limp to the ground; there's struggling, sounds of exertion, sounds of punches and slamming of bodies into the dirt below. 

"What's going on?" Someone asks, but the question doesn't receive any answer, only more grunting and rustling of leaves; you slump beneath the torn fabric, quickly killing the light, holding your breath. It's not an animal. It's people, no idea how many, but armed and likely dangerous. You stretch out your arm into the darkness to find the side of your backpack and grab the sheathed knife from the side pocket, readying yourself for whatever comes your way with a small prayer and grinding of your teeth.

"Search the tents, there could be more." Someone talks, voice muffled, close to your left as you pull the knife slowly out of its sheath, turning it in your hands, unsure how to proceed. They're not aware of your presence, as far as you can tell, and that's the edge you need to get a drop on at least one of them. There's two, maybe three of them, and there were four of you, but from the sound of it, the others were already in their grasp. Still alive, panting and crying, but thank God, still alive. You swallow around the knot in your throat, waiting for something, anything to happen.

A hand grasps the canvas covering you and pulls; you don't wait to hear his reaction, jumping to your feet and launching yourself at his body knife first. It hits its target; you feel it sink into flesh, you hear the gurgling sound as it severs the carotid. Lucky hit, incredibly lucky, and you're stunned, face splattered with blood. The man falls at your feet, and the knife gets ripped from your hand and goes down with him. He's wearing a red ski mask and you're profoundly grateful for that; if you could've seen his face, it would've haunted you forever. Your eyes move from the now lifeless body to your hands, sticky with blood, and then to the terrified faces of your friends, AK barrels pointed at the back of their heads, images moving in slow motion like an old movie roll; you open your mouth to yell out, say something, but the blow to the back of your own head cuts you off brutally.

* * *

You're dumped unceremoniously on the ground, knees sinking into the mud. You're lucky the hit didn't knock you out, just made you docile enough to be thrown over someone's shoulder. Lucky. You keep using that word, though right now nothing about this situation screams luck to you. The girl to your right cries, trying to hide the tears with the sleeve of her jacket, but without much success. She's trying to be brave, but failing, sitting there one next to the other like in front of an execution squad. You feel lead in your stomach and your chest is constricted, each breath almost painful; white spots dance in front of your eyes, courtesy of a gun stock to your head. 

Something heavy falls in front of you; a body, neck punctured. Bile rises up your gullet, forcing you to swallow until it no longer threatens to spill out. Your handiwork. Sure, you'd feel a lot worse if he had been innocent, but uneasiness still makes you want to squirm away from the corpse. Away from the eyes that drill holes into your skull. They know it was you. The two remaining men threw you in the bed of a truck, hogtied and gagged, and took you to an imposing building surrounded by a tall metallic fence, passing by a still lake. They cut you loose and shoved you through the gates; you caught a glimpse at them, but couldn't read what they said. Somehow they reminded you of the Auschwitz gates, sending a shiver down your spine that still haunted you now. There are others circling you, studying your faces and your clothes, whispering amongst each other, taunting, or simply laughing. At first glance, they all look fairly similar, all with beards and unkempt hair, all wearing the same type of clothes, same colors.

There's a man between them that looks different, back straight, donning a military style jacket, complete with insignias, name patch and dog tags. A thought runs through your head, that whoever you killed was military as well, and it makes you panic. A foreign national killing a soldier on American soil, what were the consequences for that? But it starts to look less and less army as your eyes adjust to the beams of light pointed directly at your face.

Cages. A row of tall cages trapping silhouettes of ragged men inside, some wailing, some pacing, some dying. Some already dead. Your hands tremble, still bloodstained, and you press them together, trying to hide them in the fabric of your hoodie. Everything's happening too fast, you barely have time to register it.

The man appears to be in charge, measuring you and the others one by one, pacing calmly before his eyes stop on the dead body between him and his new prisoners.

"Who did this?" He drawls, voice low and unaffected. 

Someone must have pointed at you; his eyes fall on you and you tense, pushing your hands further into the cloth to keep him from seeing the evidence, and how they tremble now uncontrollably with fear. Whoever is behind you pulls you up and shoves you forward, almost slamming you into the man's chest. From up close, he's even more terrifying. Scarred, rough skin, icy blue, dead, dead eyes. You take a step back eager to put some distance between you and him. He gestures to one of the two men that captured you, and they hand him something; your eyes focus on the bloodstained blade. It's your knife, and he's twirling it around with an amused look on his face; it looks so small in his hands, almost like a toddler's toy. 

"Alright then," he speaks again and you avoid his eyes, suddenly feeling like a scolded child in front of him. "Let's play a little game." He grabs the knife by the blade and offers it to you; you stare at the handle for what feels like an eternity, before wrapping a shaky hand around it, unsure of what is happening. He smiles at you, but it doesn't reach his eyes, still regarding you coldly.

He steps back, and pulls out his own knife out of his thigh holster.

"If you can cut me once before I kill you, I'll let you take his place."


	2. First Confrontations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> EDIT 21st Oct.: some details have been changed and/or added to this chapter; I've replayed the Grandview Hotel mission and realised that I missed some important things.

You blink once, twice, dumbfounded, staring at the man advancing on you. You mustn't have heard him right, but now he's directly in front of you, taking in your slouched shoulders and scared look in your eyes. He shakes his head in disapproval as you back away from him and into the crowd behind you. A few hands push you back, laughing cruelly at your fear for your life; tuning out their jeers and whistles seems simple enough, with the sounds of your own thundering heartbeat in your ears.

You did hear him correctly. If you try and fight, he would kill you with no hesitation, unless you somehow manage to wound him first. You wonder what would happen if you refuse to fight at all; the arm holding your knife is still limp at your side, and your fingers barely feel the rubber beneath your skin. He wouldn't kill you then, probably, but when he gets bored and no longer wants to play with you he would toss you to his minions, who seem like they have less morals and more feral instincts. 

And so your best bet is fight, and the odds are terrible. You raise the knife in front of your face, gripping it as tightly as you can in your fist; blood is still caked on the sharp blade, but you try your best to ignore it. His eyes shine for a second with approval, as if to say good choice. A choice that would buy you about another five more minutes to live; the man clearly has military training, and a much bigger and better weapon. Taller and stronger looking than you. A hundred and one possibilities run wild through your head, and none of them end well for you.

None of you have moved for a while, each waiting to see what the other's first move will be. Not as equal parties, but more like predator and prey; you were still pondering whether you should let him attack first or not when he comes for you. You narrowly dodge the punch aimed at your face by ducking under his arm and making a run for it, putting distance between yourself and him again. He still smirks as he turns, an exhilarated expression that paints his impatience to get his hands on you. You meet him halfway, slamming your body into his and drinking in the sound of air forcefully exiting his lungs. He grabs the back of your neck harshly and throws you off him, before you manage to blindly strike at him with the knife, praying it connects. Not much of a strategy.

He leaves you no room to breathe, and you can barely fight the urge to cower in front of him. He strikes, you raise your arms to protect your face and the serrated end of the blade catches your flesh, sawing through it. It barely hurts, you figure the adrenaline pumping to your system has made you nearly numb by now; you feel a throb and blood starting to slowly trickle down your fingers. He retreats, unsatisfied. He doesn't want it to end so quickly. 

You grit your teeth, glaring at him with all the hate you can muster; if only looks could kill. He's letting you reset yourself; he wants a fight, not a slaughter. Fine then. So be it.

Your feet carry you forward; he circles, keeping you at a distance, pleased obviously by your initiative. You have to be fast; you rush him, hoping to catch him by surprise, but his reflexes stop you, his left forearm blocking your knife from reaching his body. You grab a hold of his sleeve with your free hand and pull, hoping to hinder him; he shoves his forearm into yours, making you stagger backwards, still holding on to his jacket. His weapon bites at your arm, tearing through your hoodie and making you gasp in pain, contorting your face into a grimace. His sleeve slips from your fingers and he lunges at you, grabbing your own arm right below the cut he made.

Panic takes you over; you struggle to free yourself, but his hold on you is not something you can easily break. He raises his fist to strike, eyes fixed on your face, staring you down, captivated by something he saw in your expression. Fear, maybe. Desperation. You swing the knife at his abdomen as fast as you can; he pulls back, but not fast enough. Your breath stops in your throat as the tip of the blade catches the fabric of his shirt, punches through and scrapes at the hidden skin below. He stops, loosening his grip, and you scramble away from him, watching him as he pulls up the hem of his shirt. Angry scars stare back at you, but what truly catches your eyes is the thin, fresh cut oozing droplets of blood like tiny rubies contrasting with the pallor of his skin. You want to scream, celebrate your victory, but now another thought worms itself into your skull: what if he doesn't hold his end of the deal. Maybe there was no deal at all, and he just wanted to have a little fun with you before he gutted you like you did his soldier. 

He lets his shirt fall back, the already dirty material soaking up the blood and making yet another stain. He's not looking at you anymore, he's turned towards his men, who have grown silent the moment their leader was wounded. You sit there dumbfounded, unsure of what would come next. You feel eyes on you, but you don't want to meet them, afraid of the sentiments you would find in them. The red haired man, seemingly unbothered by the laceration on his stomach, nods towards one of the men that captured you.

"Put them in a cage."

The other man approaches you, taking the knife from your hands before you even think to use it; he grabs your shoulder and guides you towards the tall, metallic cages. You're not sure if it's just your imagination, but his touch seems almost gentle now, bringing you a weird sense of comfort; you must be starting to lose your mind already. You miss the warmth you felt through the fabric when he lets go, and your heart sinks into your gut. The bars close behind you and your friends, shoved unceremoniously inside after you, eye you warily. You're a murderer now. You finally collapse, your legs unable to hold your weight anymore; the absurdity of the situation hits a moment later. None of you knows what is going on, why you've been kidnapped, who are these people, or what is that place. They're terrified themselves, but when they look at you there's still pity in their eyes and you can't stand it. There's two men in the cage to your left; one of them doesn't move, asleep, you hope, as the other sits with his back against the bars between you, refusing to turn when you try to call to him. 

Sleep won't come to you, you know it already; the courtyard's not quiet, not even for a second, and those who do manage to sleep awake with jolts and sometimes screams, haunted by nightmares. You hide your face in your palms, concealing the despair that was starting to show, and pray softly that you'll get through that night. 

Two days pass and you are finally given some water; you force yourself to drink it slowly, but it doesn’t work, so you pour it down your parched throat instead. In those two days you haven’t learned much. The red haired man’s name is Jacob. He comes every two or three days in the courtyard and marches in front of the cages, picking out one or two of his prisoners; his men take them out and shove them out of sight, through the compound’s gates. Some return. Some don’t. There’s new faces as well, a worrying amount of them. The two men in the cage to your left were fed what looked like cubed raw meat, but they didn’t seem to care, eating with their hands with animalistic voraciousness. And you’d be disgusted if your stomach wasn’t growling constantly, eating away at its own lining.

When the third day comes by, military boots stop in front of your cage. Your breath catches in your throat, frantically searching the others’ faces; your terror mirrors theirs, although they, as well as you, are almost entirely certain he’s here for you, and not for them. You look up, confirming your fears. He waves his hand in your direction, before turning around without another glance. Another man, red balaclava covering his face, unlocks the cage and pulls you to your feet.

“Move.” The command feels unnecessary when accompanied by a harsh shove; you stumble and almost meet the ground below, but his hand gripping your arm stops you from falling and drags you along towards a white truck. You catch a glimpse of red hair behind the steering wheel before you’re turned around and your hands are tied together with a zip tie. 

You travel in the bed of the truck once again, breathing in the cold and almost sweet air slowly in a futile attempt to calm yourself; the building you approach looks different, more welcoming, although still giving off a slightly sinister vibe. You read the sign: “Grand View Hotel”.

You’re led inside; they take off your bracelet, weigh you and make you clearly state your name and age, writing everything down in a thick ledger.

"Do you have any heart or lung conditions?" You shake your head, standing with your back flush against the doorframe while a man marks with a pencil where the top of your head reaches and then measures it with a yellow tailor's tape.

"Do you have any psychiatric disorders?"

"No," you mutter; not that you know of. He pushes you down on what used to be the hotel's lobby couch, testing your reflexes with the side of his palm. 

When they're done evaluating you, you're sat on a chair, your hands and feet secured to its arms and legs. You pull at the restraints, but it's useless; they're too tight around you, and half your strength is down the drain already. Instead, you slump, frustrated, awaiting your fate. The lights are off and you can barely make out a white, enormous screen in front of you; it blinds you when light finally hits it, the telltale whirring of an overhead projector filling your ears with white noise. 

Images start appearing on the canvas; a lush, green forest, a crystalline river, a majestic deer. Confusion creeps into you, unsure what to make of what you are seeing; there’s an anxious feeling in the back of your mind, waiting for something to go wrong. It does, after a few minutes of serenity; you see it when it flashes before your eyes, after the forest that keeps repeating. A corpse, slashed, fur splattered with brilliant blood. The river comes after, as if nothing happened, and your breath starts to become more labored. There's a sickly sweet smell flooding your nostrils and white spots that you can't blink away mar your vision. 

What is the purpose of this whole charade, except to instill a feeling of dread into your system? The corpse comes more frequently, and it’s joined by others; rotting carcasses, wolves with crimson muzzles ripping into their prey. You tug at the restraints with a newfound force, but it is still in vain. The smell makes you sick to your stomach and turns your head into a fuzzy, distorted mess. They didn't give you anything, did they?

There’s footsteps behind you.

The red haired man, Jacob, gives a monologue you can only half listen to, suddenly feeling weary and tired. One word gets to you however, resounding in your mind. Weak. The world is weak. His speech seems rehearsed, but you can tell he believes in it. It’s his own twisted religion. The light from the projector makes it hard to see his face, but you can tell he’s measuring you. You grit your teeth tightly, swallowing back bile; the flashing between the slides put an irritating ache behind your eyes. 

"You have some potential. Your friends, they're weak,” there it is again, “but with you I could do something. And you do need to pay for your crime." His voice fades out for a moment, as if someone just submerged your head into water. He circles you again like he did in the courtyard; you feel tears begin to well up in your eyes and you blink them away before he can see them. It was more of an accident than anything, you didn’t kill him in a fight. You took him by surprise and sliced his throat like a coward.

“That’s enough for today.”

The sentence implies that there will be a next time, and your assumption is correct. You don’t return to the cage, you spend the night locked inside a hotel room, sitting on the floor with your back against the bed and your arms wrapped around your folded legs, weeping softly into your knees. You’ve never wished you could go home more than you do right now, completely alone, moonlight shining on your face through the curtainless window. You move to the windowsill, resorting to watching the sky until the horizon begins to bleed. The fresh air brings back your senses, at least, clearing your headache and the ringing in your ears. 

You haven’t slept a wink when you are strapped again, the same slideshow dancing in front of your eyes. Second time.

Third time you want to scream, to pull at the ties until they saw through flesh and bone and finally grant your freedom.

Fourth time you’re docile, tears streaming down your cheeks with no one there to wipe them away.

You lost track. No one is answering any of your questions, no one cares enough to look at you for longer than it takes to tie you down. It's all a bleak, maddening routine. But at some point, he shows up again, looking more ragged than he usually does. He talks again about his visions, playing with a square box he’s pulled out of his pocket; the world is weak, and you must become strong. But what happens if you can’t be strong? What happens if all you want to do is just roll over and die?

The square box in his hands turns out to be a music box; he winds it, watching your unresponsive face the entire time, waiting for something that never comes. He opens it, and you scowl, expecting to hear a dainty, squeaky melody.

What comes out instead catches you off guard; garbled, warped noise forcing itself into your skull through your ears. Gasping, you try to cover them, but it's too late, it's inside already and it's making your mind swim in sudden, violent thoughts. You bring your hands to your face, surprised when nothing restrains you; did he free you? Your head whips around, staring him in the face. He looks feral, ready to rip into you; 'protect yourself', your instinct screams out. You throw yourself at him and he catches you with little effort, pushing you back. 

"Slow down," his voice is amplified, seeming to come from within your chest, rather than his mouth. "Don't be rash, think."

Think. There's not much you can think of right now, unable to focus on anything else than your own sudden rage, and his blue eyes glaring daggers at you. Around you, everything is red, red and foggy, and everything changes in a blink of an eye, to the point where you can’t trust anything anymore. He's drugged you. There's no other explanation for this. Your eyes land on a pedestal to your left, an open weapon case laying on top of it. It’s a gun; he raises an eyebrow when you make no move to lift it. 

The barrel of his red pistol gleams, pointed directly at your chest; you stagger backwards, waiting for the shot to take you.

You’re brought back to reality harshly and you’re nothing but a heap on the floor breathing heavily when he crouches next to you, scowling.

"Do you even know how to shoot a gun?" You shake your head, not trusting yourself enough to open your mouth without vomiting. It wouldn’t be much anyway, mostly just stomach acid, and the two bites of thankfully cooked meat you had that morning. He scoffs.

"You're never going to pass the trials this way." He concludes; your survival instinct kicks into overdrive, urging you to find a way to change his mind before even fully processing the words that came out of his mouth.

"Teach me, then." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot write fight scenes to save my life xD


	3. Deal

He scans your face with a neutral expression, watching the gears turn into your head. Why did you even say that? You don't recall ever hearing the word trials before, what the hell did that mean? It did however ring bells of alarm and made you sprout out a sentence you thought you would never say to him, in a desperate attempt to sway him from the thought of finishing you off.

You're not sure if it worked or not; his face is perpetually unreadable, frighteningly calm at times. He rises to his feet, but keeps silent, contemplating, circling you once more; you draw your knees to your chest, in an attempt to protect yourself from this predator. Whatever madness came over yourself no more than five minutes ago is all gone now, leaving you with a ringing in your ears and an odd taste in your mouth, your vision no longer red and blurred. You shudder, coldness suddenly seeping into your bones, and don't even realize that he's gone.

You're moved back to the veteran center that same day, shortly after you're pulled back to your feet and offered a canteen, without much of an explanation; your stomach is filled with lead and you're unable to drink more than a single sip of cold water. You can feel it pour down your throat and settle like a brick in your gut, as you struggle to remain focused and come up with a strategy. If they wanted to kill you, they would have done it already, you hope. You cannot run, your hands are tied at your front, and even if you could somehow get away from them, you have no idea where you are or where you should be going. You don't know who can help you, who is willing to, if there is anybody. They probably wouldn't even bother bringing you back once they find you again; a bullet to the back of your head would be a more likely fate. 

So you resort to being on your best behavior, and hope it would work to keep you relatively safe; a lousy plan, but it is all you've got.

Another masked guard takes you out of the truck and cuts your restraints; you frown, wiggling your half numb fingers and rubbing at the marks on the inside of your wrists, where the rope had bitten mercilessly. You know it's a different man behind the balaclava because this one doesn't push you, just gently grabs your upper arm and guides you to the courtyard. It's feeding time. There's a metal cart with bowls and flasks of water, unsupervised, close to the cages; the smell of raw meat is overwhelming, and it makes you grateful that at least Jacob had been feeding you somewhat decently. Grateful, but guilty, looking at long, emaciated faces watching you with curiosity, pity, envy, disdain. 

Your friends stare at you through the bars, faces muddied and tired; were they put through the same conditioning? You remember him calling them weak, how would he know, unless he tested them. No, no, he called them weak before he even tested you; it was merely an assumption based on how they handled themselves during their abduction. You shake your head, feeling a knot form in the throat. They see you free, on the other side of the wall of bars, and why is that? Because they were taken by surprise, and you had time to hide. Without thinking, you grab a flask of water from the trolley and march towards the cage like you belong there. One of them rushes to meet you, murmuring in your native language, and God, does it bring a tear in your eye to hear it. His hand unwraps itself from around the metal bars to receive the canteen, bringing it almost immediately to his dry lips. 

"Hey!" You're pushed to the side by the guard, who rips the flask from his shaking hand and throws it on the ground, spilling the contents. They soak into the earth, gone in a second. You glare at the man, red tinge at the edges of your vision, putting your own body between him and the man behind the bars. The guard wastes no time, reaching for his holster.

"What is going on here?" 

Jacob. Of course. He approaches you slowly, taking in the sight. Spilled water, gun pointed at your head, your hands half raised in surrender, a pathetic attempt to defuse the situation. His eyes turn to your friend, who sits frozen behind you, chin trembling with unreleased tears, then to his guard.

"Do I need to ask again?" He doesn't need to raise his voice to sound threatening. The man lowers his gun an inch, but it's still very much trained on you, still ready to shoot you should Jacob deem it necessary. 

"Caught them stealing water." The guard offers, shortly, but enough to incriminate both of you. Much to your horror, Jacob's eyes gloss over you and glue themselves to the man behind you. He takes a step towards the cage and it's enough to make you flinch.

"No!" You hear yourself yell, moving without thinking to wrap your hand around Jacob's bare forearm, realising the mistake the instant his whole body stiffened. "It was me, it's my fault." It was also a mistake to look up to his face; his eyes darken, staring at the spot when your skin meets his. It feels rough and sticky under your fingertips, which you now realise are digging into wounds, red and angry and weeping; you rip your hand away as fast as you can, breaking his trance, and take a quick step back to put more distance between your bodies. The guard's gun is down now, his own posture rigid; he looks like he doesn’t want to be there anymore.

"Inside." Jacob's tone is still even, despite the tension in his shoulders. You've done something wrong, something no one's done before, you can feel that. You wipe your fingers on the already dirty denim you're wearing. "I'll deal with you when I'm done here."

The veteran center was basically nothing more than a nursing home, stripped bare of all its commodities; you pace around the vacant lobby, hands clenched tightly into fists to stop them from shaking. You can’t hear what’s going on outside, and although the idea of trying to sneak a peek was tempting, you decide against it. The fear that something might happen to your friend because of your rash behavior was eating away at you, making you feel nauseous; you need to stop thinking about it before you throw up, or else your body might give up before your stubbornness does. Although just a sip, you can still feel the water sloshing around in your stomach; when you were a kid, your grandmother would say that if you drink too much water, frogs would grow in your stomach. A shy smile grows on your face at the memory, your eyes starting to sting.

When Jacob steps inside the building, his own face returned to its previous lax state, you wipe the evidence of tears and barely manage to stop yourself from running up to him. The torrent of questions still leaves your lips, however, filled with obvious distress.

"What did you do to him? Is he ok?" He doesn't answer, instead walks up the stairs, stopping halfway when he realizes you're not following.

"Move." It's another order you feel compelled to obey, like he's your drill instructor and you're a mewling recruit who knows they'll never make it. You follow with your head down, each small step on the tiled floor deafening. 

"Are you not gonna tell me?" You know you're pushing it, and hope to make up for it by keeping your voice soft, quiet enough that he can barely register it. You're uncertain where this courage to demand information came from; perhaps from earlier, when you finally saw a glimpse of real emotion on his face, other than apathy. His untouchable facade falling for a brief second. You should be keeping silent - a small part of your brain is telling you - you're not innocent either.

"He's fine, if you want to know so badly." You weren't expecting him to answer, but you feel a wave of relief wash over you. It's a twisted definition of fine, indeed, but at least he hasn't been directly harmed. And right now, Jacob wouldn't lie. There is nothing for him to gain by lying. He's leading you down a corridor lined with doors on each side, stopping in front of the third one on the left. 

The room has been more or less turned into a cell, with a cot, and a toilet and a sink behind a green shower curtain attached to a U-shaped pipe protruding from the wall. He walks behind you, arms crossed in front of his chest. 

"You'll start your training first thing tomorrow. Be ready." You whip around to look at him, catching only the back of his jacket as he closes the door behind him. It worked; you jubilate for a moment, savoring another small victory. How much time is this one going to buy you? You shake your grim thoughts out of your mind, sitting down on the cot and grabbing handfuls of thick, olive green quilt to ground yourself. You're alone, just like in the hotel room, but this time it's different. It feels safe, almost; ridiculous, if you come to think about it. Tomorrow morning it will start all over again. The training, the trials, whatever that was. Your friends' faces flash before your eyes, guilt gnawing at your conscience.

You fall asleep in your cot very late that night, head swimming in anxious thoughts. The knock on your door wakes you up from a dream that was just setting up to turn into a nightmare. 

It's not Jacob. It's not a masked soldier either. It's a bearded older man dressed in a dirty white sweater, who's holding the door open for you to come out of hiding. You swallow, and slowly drag yourself out of your safe space.

"Sleep well?" He asks, out of weird politeness, and you throw him a condescending look that softens almost immediately; he looks harmless enough, his brown eyes almost warm. Maybe it's some sort of trap, your paranoia tells you. You shrug, and he doesn't press you, leading you the rest of the way towards the courtyard. You do your best to not look towards the cages. He takes you past them, to a part of the compound you've never seen before.

A man with his face covered takes over; "Should've shot you yesterday", he murmurs instead of a greeting. He was at the cages. Jacob chose him to teach you how to shoot a gun, perhaps a punishment for losing sight of you and allowing you to do things you weren't supposed to. Shit. You need to make peace, unless you want that gun to 'accidentally' unload right into your skull.

"Honestly, can you blame me?" He avoids your eyes, clearly annoyed by his new task.

"Shut up." You don't argue, and he shoves the pistol into your hands. It's so unfamiliar, so foreign, you fight the urge to drop it, or toss it back to him; this will help you. If he teaches you, you can use it to escape. Wishful thinking, yes, but as long as it keeps your hope alive, you'll take it.

He makes you dismantle the handgun and put it back together over and over again, until the sun hangs right above your head, and you know every piece by heart. It's noon now, and your throat burns, but you know better than to ask him for water. He sees your discomfort, but does nothing to relieve it; instead he hands you a full magazine, and warns you to keep your finger off the trigger.


	4. Underdog

It takes you an entire day to get used to the recoil, another two to never miss the target. It's going slow, but steady, although the man sometimes shows signs of impatience and even exasperation. He doesn't think you're worth all that trouble. Frankly, you aren't. But you're not going to admit it to him, or anyone else. You need this to survive, and to survive you need to prove it to Jacob that you are not weak. 

And steadily, the cell is no longer a cell, but your own room. Your haven. It becomes familiar, welcome even, at the end of a routine filled day, to lie down on top of the covers and stare at the cracks in the ceiling paint, savoring your moment of peace.

Until a morning when, while being led to the impromptu shooting range, a small commotion catches your attention. They've brought new cages to the courtyard, and you suddenly stop walking, lungs filling with frozen terror, though it's not what you're thinking. The cages are not as tall, they don't match the ones already lined up and filled to the brim with desperate, dying people. They look more suited for an animal.

"Move!" Your escort tries to push you forward, but you stand your ground, watching the scene with wide eyes. Wolves. No, not quite wolves. Bigger, scarier beasts, with wooly white fur, eyes glassy, almost dead. Your nostrils fill with a sickly sweet scent that feels oddly familiar, despite you not remembering where you've smelled it before. Perhaps at the hotel. In front of the projector screen. You frown, shaking your head slightly as if to refresh your memory, but nothing else comes to you. It feels like the hotel, the slideshow, the murderous breakdown that you had, when you wanted nothing more than to rip Jacob's face off with your bare hands, happened ages ago. 

"Come on, I don't have all day." You're being dragged away with only a small sound at the back of your throat as protest; you find it hard to rip your eyes off the beasts, who whine and snarl at their trainers through the bars of their cages. Were they starved too, just like the prisoners? Put through trials to see which one is strong, and which are weak. You feel sorry for them, torn away from their dens to play soldiers at the whim of man. Just like you were.

"What are those wolves?" You ask your unwilling shooting teacher - basically turned babysitter by now - unable to keep your mouth shut anymore. He's not happy with small talk, but this time he indulges you.

"Judges." He says, watching you closely as you load the gun, nodding in rare approval. Pride swells in your chest, before you kill it mercilessly. "Fresh batch of them." You can hear the smile in his voice, hidden behind his mask and you know already you won't like what he'll tell you next. "They're getting them ready for the feast." The way he says it makes your blood run cold, and for a moment you're scared to question him further. You hesitate too much and never get the chance to ask for more details; he yells at you to focus, and you lose your train of thought.

It's almost evening when you're finished, and there's an air of impatience floating around the compound, the bearded men and unruly haired women of the cult - you heard others call it that in the cages, spitting insults towards somebody known as the Father - restless, roaming around with sadistic glints in their eyes. Something's coming. You hand the gun back to the man, watching his face; it's almost impossible to make out his features under the cover. His nose seems crooked and his jaw square and prominent; his eyes are blue too, but nothing like Jacob's. There's more life in them. 

"Let's go," he says. "Jacob wants you to have a front seat view for this." He leers, and you recoil, following him with small steps, trying to control the trembling in your limbs. It would be useless to ask, so you don't, resorting to listening carefully to chatter as you pass by groups of people, but nothing you hear tips you off about what was going to happen.

What you see first is a pen, built hastily out of pieces of wood nailed together and adorned with a spiral of barbed wire. The Judges' cages sit at one end of the pen, guarded fiercely by trainers armed with sharp pokers. Is this going to be some kind of fight, some messed up gladiator battle?

The emperor himself sits just across from you, on the other side of the pen, eyeing you carefully; you avoid his gaze as soon as you spot him there, standing with his arms crossed in front of his chest, but it's hard to ignore it as it drills into you. He's looking for a reaction. You tense, certain for a moment that he's going to throw you into the makeshift arena. Is this the trial he was talking about? There's people being brought inside the enclosure, bags over their heads and hands tied; frightened screams reach your ears, piercing like needles through your eardrums. You feel like you're going to throw up, instinctively taking a step backwards, only to feel a hand on your shoulder stopping you from running away. The bags are off and your heart drops into your stomach.

There's four people, two are middle aged men you don't recognize. The other two, a girl and a young man, are painfully familiar.

"No, no, no," it becomes a chant, spilling from your lips; you turn your eyes towards Jacob, to scream at him, to make it stop, but he's not watching you anymore. He nods at his men, and the cages are opened.

The beasts snarl, smelling fear; the hand around your shoulder tightens, forcing you to watch as the wolves stalk forward, tongues hanging out of their mouths, filled with razor sharp teeth. There's a stabbing pain in your hand and look down to see it wrapped around barbed wire.

The girl is down in a second, the wolf on her chest ripping through her neck, sending a spray of blood across the sand; droplets adorn its coat now, striking against the dirty white. Your hands are shaking, stained red, and the rest of your body follows through as a sob leaves your chest, followed by another, and then another one. You're aware that Jacob's attention is back on you now. Weak, you hear him inside your head, but you couldn't care less now. 

You're grateful for the tears that blur your vision, and the ringing in your ears that muffles the sounds. The girl's body is halfway gone down their hungry throats and the man is also dead, eyes fogged and mouth frozen in a scream. There's nothing left for you to do now, except watch in disbelief as the ground eats up the pools of blood, and the trainers shove their monstrosities back in their cages.

You collapse on the floor, hitting your back on the side of the cot; pain explodes in your spine, but it feels welcome. You don't remember how and when you got back to your cell. Your left hand is wrapped in a spotless bandage. You're alive. It hurts because you're still alive. You breathe heavily, grinding your teeth together to stop another sob from coming out; there's already a torrent of salty tears that you cannot stop no matter how tight you close your eyes. 

The door opens; Jacob doesn't even bother to knock at the door. You stare at him blankly, unsure of which emotion should you let take over. Anger? Fear? That treacherous desire to be comforted, no matter by who, as long as it's a gentle voice and a warm body. 

"Come." Your body jolts; you've been ordered around all day, you've gone into autopilot already, with a couple of trigger words you're only just discovering now. You follow him upstairs, to wooden double doors, which open to reveal a large room. You know what that place is the moment you see the bulletin board, with pictures of men and women you've never seen before pinned to it and connected with pieces of thread. The moment you see the bed in the corner, rusty and unmade. You shake your head, rattling your brain inside your skull. It hurts.

"No," you let out, ready to raise your arms in front of you to protect yourself, but he walks past you. His jacket comes off, tossed on the bed carelessly. In the soft light, he looks completely different. His physique doesn't seem impressive anymore; although still larger than your frame, without his jacket to hide it, he appears skinnier, sickly even, shoulders sagging and hands rubbing against each other almost obsessively. You've never seen him this vulnerable before; probably nobody inside the compound ever saw him like this, especially his men, the soldiers he trains to be strong, unwavering. 

He points you to a mattress in the opposite corner of the room, one that you missed before; he wants you to sleep there. Confusion must be visible on your face, because he sits there looking at you, ready to answer whatever question you're about to ask. There's too much flying through your mind now to even form a half coherent thought. You don't know why you're here with him; you assumed the worst when he pushed you through the doors, but there's nothing predatory about him now. No glint in his eyes, no attempt to come any closer. There was apathy on his face before, but now it shows in his body as well, and it's more frightening than any threatening stance he ever took in front of you. He doesn't care how you see him anymore. He's going to kill you tonight. 

"Why did you kill them?" You whisper. You come to terms with your own fate. At least you will die by his hand, quietly. But what did they do to deserve to go in such a horrible way?

"I thought it was obvious. They were weak, couldn't even get past the first phase." He sits on his own bed; it protests under his weight - it looks more like a prison cot than something one would willingly sleep on. Is he punishing himself? "That other kid though, he's promising." Your head shoots up. He's talking about him, the one you gave water to. He's still alive. "Do you know what comes at the end of the trials?" You shake your head; you don't even know what the trials are. You tried to question the man who was training you, but he didn't seem to want to talk about it too much. "A sacrifice." 

You swallow around the knot in your throat.

"One of you will be the other's sacrifice." He states, running a hand through his ginger hair, watching your body stiffen. He's sicking you against one another, making sure you truly have no one. In the end you will have no choice. Could you do it? Can he do it? You're a killer already, what's one more? There's no more air in your lungs anymore, your chest constricted by fear with a vice like grip. You're going insane. "So I suggest you step up your game. There's no guarantee you'll even pass the trials." He continues, sowing doubt into you.

"Why did you agree to have me trained then?" You ask, voice rougher than you were expecting. Clearing your throat rubs it raw and you wince, regretting it as soon as you see the smirk on his face. His approval ensures your survival. If he doubts your abilities, you might as well start digging your own grave.

"We've been through this before." Were you? You remember his talk about potential, how he mistook your luck for it. You try for a second to not discredit yourself; perhaps your fight instinct was more developed than the others'. But in the end it was still chance that made it happen. He doesn't want to enlighten you anymore; he curls up on his bed, facing the wall. You look at his back for a moment, contemplating. He doesn't see you as a threat, and you scan the room briefly, eyes passing over at least a dozen objects you could smash his head or stab him with. He doesn't think you have it in you to attack him. 

He's right. You let yourself fall on the mattress, chest still heavy and unanswered questions still swimming in your head. Does he think you'll feel flattered that he trusts you to sleep in the same room as him? If that mattress was already there before, you must not be the first one. And if there were others, what happened to them? You force yourself to close your eyes, but the moment you do, you see dead eyes and blood, rivers and rivers of blood.

Neither of you sleep properly that night. Your mind is racing, and he tosses and turns, muttering under his breath; you listen to him twist around, unable to find his peace. Nightmares. He was a soldier, served probably in the desert somewhere, judging by the type of camo print on his jacket. PTSD is a normal occurrence for people who have served. People who saw friends killed right in front of their eyes. Is that why he brought you here? Because he can relate somehow to the thing he deliberately put you through?

Exhaustion takes you over eventually, after a million other questions, and not long before the sun rises, flooding the entire room with warm light. 


	5. Knowledge is Power

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NOTE: the second chapter has been modified a little; I realised I was missing some details after replaying the Grandview Hotel mission and decided to put them in:)

It's definitely late into the morning when you wake up with a jolt, standing up quickly and looking around frantically, forgetting where you are for a second. The room is empty, unfamiliar, way too large to be your tiny cell. Last night's events replay into your head and the weight of it settles into your chest once more. Your friends, two of them at least, are dead. The remaining one, if you are to trust what Jacob said, is in the process of being turned into a toy soldier, much like you. Without the extra steps, of course. Jacob. He's gone, his bed stripped bare, empty and cold, like nobody has ever touched it. A glutton for punishment, this one. You didn't bother - didn't dare - to undress for the night, falling asleep in your dirty clothes and with your shoes still on. You're grateful for it, as the doors leading to what looked like a balcony stand cracked open, chilly wind forcing itself in. 

It feels like time has finally slowed down enough for you to take it all in. Your first two weeks here were all a blur, an entire mess, days jumbled together until you don't remember in what order and how it happened. Camp, knife fight, cage, hotel, cell, shooting range, wolves. Death. Blood. A string of words and crumbs of images that replayed into your mind. It's quiet now, maybe a bit too quiet, but you're not about to take it for granted.

The cork board is the first thing you want to look closer at; you noticed it last night, caught a glimpse of unfamiliar faces and clippings from newspapers, along with maps and pieces of strings connecting everything. It doesn't make any sense to you, but you pick up some names, and that there's a militia. A resistance. Whatever is happening in these mountains is bigger than you thought. There's pillars of files and maps and diagrams scattered all over the tables, it would take you weeks, maybe months to go through every one of them and still, it would probably earn you nothing. This helplessness frustrates you; you struggle to remember every piece of information you've gathered so far. The locals in the cages liked to throw the word "cult" around, along with others such as "crazy", "lunatics", "fucking psychos", although those you could pretty much figure out by yourself. Their leader, this Father they all spoke of, you could have sworn you heard a man mention his real name, but now you can't remember, no matter how much you struggle. Jacob serves to prepare them for the so called "collapse." A catastrophic event, perhaps, set to wipe them all out. A doomsday prophet. A "savior", as your disgruntled shooting teacher put it, before snapping at you to keep your mouth shut and your questions to yourself. And the trials, the trials were meant to test you if you're ready. If you're worthy. If you're strong.

You sigh, moving away from the piles and piles of paper. A thought enters your mind briefly, after you see what looked like several driving licences, held together by a rubber band: your passport might be around here somewhere. You don't know when, or if, you'll be left completely alone and unsupervised like this again, but you decide against searching. It would take you too much to go through all that paperwork, and you're certain he would notice. You turn towards the balcony doors; the shard of sky you can glimpse through the crack is beautiful, cloudless and azure. 

Your body jerks involuntarily, violently even, when doors open behind you; Jacob's inside the room, holding a plate filled with two eggs and four rashers of bacon. It smells divine, and you're suddenly aware of your stomach burning through itself. It can't be for you. You're only ever fed scraps and leftovers. 

"Good, you're awake." He moves behind his desk, eyes scanning the contents; you congratulate yourself for having the common sense to not touch anything. He definitely would have noticed; he seems content that you behaved yourself. He pushes away a pile of reports with his free hand, and motions for you to come over. You hesitate when he pulls the chair back, waiting for you to sit. Everything is off, your routine broken. 

"What time is it?" You ask, slouching into the chair and eyeing the plate carefully, greedily. He seems amused.

"Got somewhere to be?" He smirks, a hint of childlike cruelty in his curling lips, but he humors you anyway. "Noon."

"The training..." You trail off, suddenly remembering that yes, in fact, you were supposed to be somewhere else right now. He shakes his head, setting the plate in front of you. And a fork; you've been eating with your hands since you arrived, and now the cutlery seems exquisite. A luxury. Your hand twitches on the table, wanting to pick it up, looking at him for approval.

"You've had enough babysitting." He says, pushing the plate closer to you. The confirmation you needed. "Eat. I need you in the bliss today." You frown; the bliss, you swear you've heard that before too, but you're not sure where and what it means. Asking would probably be futile. Instead, you eat as slowly as your grumbling stomach allows you to; it's harder than you thought, as the first bite of well salted eggs fills your mouth with water. Jacob watches you eat off the plate, piece by piece until there's nothing left. You've never tasted anything more delicious in your entire life; you purr like a cat, savoring the privilege with grease coating your lips and starting to drip down your chin. You lick them gratuitously, feeling Jacob's eyes still on you. They've been on you the entire time, as if he's trying to make something out of it. Measure you. Ponder, maybe, whether or not you're worth the trouble, the spoiling.

He must have decided you are, because the next place he takes you is a shower. It's nothing special, white tiles and a head too high for you to reach with your fingers, spilling lukewarm water into your hair, down your shoulders, splashing at your feet. You smile, closing your eyes; up until now, you've washed yourself the best you could at the sink in your cell, almost never feeling properly clean. It's scary to think how much your basic needs have been neglected, if such mundane activity brings you so much joy. You want to stay there forever, engulfed in the warm embrace, but the fear he'd burst in and drag you out stops you from lingering.

You pick the right size of clothes out of the pile that was dumped for you on the edge of the sink, feeling freshened up and strangely optimistic.

It dies, however, faster than you hoped, in a haze of green gas and white sparks like fireflies. You know the music box is the last thing you saw, and the shower the last you remember. Your limbs feel like cotton, mind empty, surrendering control to a muffled tune; a song you can't recognize now, but you know it, it's familiar and persuasive and you can feel it in your bones. His voice comes from inside you, resonating in your chest. 

"Cull the herd." 

The gun is in your hands, you're in control now; or so he lets you think. You stare at the row of practice dummies in front of you - you know what you have to do. 

The recoil jerks your wrist, sending a shock through your arm and the bullet above the target, implanting itself into a tree. 

"Again. Focus." Your vision swims and you have to blink, once, twice just to stop the dizziness. His words snap you at attention, lifting the gun once more. One shot, two shots, three, tearing through the abdomen.

"Again."

One bullet through the head. One misses. You still can't make out the words to the song, but you're almost there. Whatever it is, it tastes sweet in your mouth, and fills your head with lust for violence. You're only half aware of how hard you're breathing, wheezing almost.

"Do it again." One through the head, one through the throat; satisfaction warms you up.

"Good." Comes the praise, and the music box closes, song cut off and left hanging. You gasp, watching the mannequins smoke; you're on your knees, not knowing how you got there; Jacob's playing with the gun you knew you had in your hand just seconds ago, magazine off. "You respond well." Your throat is dry and scratchy as you cough, the smell stuck in your nose. "If you have it in you, the bliss will bring it out." Bliss. This must be what he's drugging you with, to make you so compliant. So willing to do his every whim.

He puts you under two more times until he's satisfied, and when he decides you're done, he doesn't bring you to his room, instead puts you back in the cell. The small kindnesses from that morning are left to be missed. Time passes weirdly inside that blurry mess, the grip on reality slipping; it's dark already, and you're feeling more and more restless.

"Better get some sleep," he says, before locking the door, "your first trial is tomorrow." You wish he hadn't told you, spared you of that anxiety that's making your stomach boil now, but of course he doesn't feel like sheltering you. That earlier was your preparation, him testing you to see if you can handle it. He seems to think so, but what if you can't? What if… What if you never went on this stupid vacation?

You're back at the Grandview the next morning, stomach filled with lead and a few cubes of well done meat; the pampering is over. Now it's time for you to step up. 

The music box opens, and you're gone.

"Cull the herd."

Red again, like the first time, murderous and angry. If you have it in you, the bliss will bring it out. You grip the star spangled gun in your hand, irony lost on you, as you advance. Live, warm bodies are not what you expected him to throw at you. "Move," he growls as you freeze, watching the man in front of you reach for his own gun; he's wearing forest camo and a cap, and disappears in a cloud of smoke as you put a round through his head, heart threatening to burst out of your chest. The bliss will bring it out. Your finger trembles on the trigger.

There's more of them, shouting over the howl of the song. A bullet grazes your shoulder; Jacob huffs in disappointment as you cry out and sink behind cover. The hand you pressed to your wound is covered in blood now, sticky and smelling like copper, mixed with sugary bliss. "Get up." Your legs are ready to give in under you, but you find the strength to obey. The bliss does. You squeeze your eyes shut for a second; firing blindly above your head - one miss, two misses, third one hits, but you don't know where. She's still alive, howling in pain; a barrage of bullets hits the concrete parapet protecting you and you grit your teeth, prepared to meet your fate. 

She must have bled out, she's silent now, but there's another one, you can hear him breathe, fast and harsh, scared perhaps. Is he real? Are you real? The pain in your shoulder and the blood staining your clothes feel real enough; then why are you having doubts? You're stalling too much - you hear him move, stalking closer to you; peeking around the concrete, you catch a flash of camo. Aim, exhale shoot, just like you were taught; the bullet hits him, and he goes down, down before vanishing, as if he never existed. Something gnaws at your chest, but you're quick to kill that as well.

"Not bad." Not bad? Your pride feels wounded, determination to impress filling the emptiness in your chest. Remorse is left behind. The deconstructed facade of the veterans center stares you in the face, guarded by three men in uniform; when the last one of them falls, time slows around you - his body lingers, faceless and frozen. You stand victorious, the only one left, only you. 

"Well done." He announces, cynical, and your heart flutters with contentment for a brief moment, a moment that you hate with every fiber of your being. Why does his approval mean so much to you? But the music stops and you crash and burn, crutches no longer there to support you. The song. You know the words.

As the night rolls in, you find yourself on Jacob's floor, shaking from every limb, replaying it in your mind. Every bullet you shot, every hit and every miss. Every scream of pain, every panicked "no, no". It wasn't real, none of it, you tell yourself. You didn't kill anyone, not again. Except your shoulder is bandaged, throbbing. Jacob stands at his desk, writing on a piece of paper, a black lamp the only source of light; you wonder briefly if it's your performance he's rating, whether you did good, or he's not satisfied yet.

"What is going on?" You ask, voice small, trying to sound as harmless as possible. It's shaking too, unable to stay calm. 

"Be more specific." He doesn't raise his head from his papers; his hair starts falling slowly on his brow, and he stops to push it back with one hand.

"These trials, what are we training for, what is this collapse?" You avoid the question, was it real? You don't believe you can take the answer. Maybe it is best if you don't know. He looks tired, and you think for a second that he won't reply. "I don't know what's happening." You feel tears start to fill your eyes, and you blink them away quickly. He can't see that. "I don't know why I'm here, what I'm supposed to fight for." You don't know your purpose, and because of that, you cannot believe in his cause. 

It works, and he talks. About his brothers and sister; the Father - his brother Joseph; his beliefs, the bliss, and the apocalypse they were waiting for. How the weak will die and the strong will prevail. When he's done you don't speak, don't move a muscle, staring idly at the floor beneath his boots. Survivalism taken to the extreme is how you'd categorize his actions; he's not wrong, in a way. But it doesn't justify what he's doing to you, to all of them. It never will.

"I know you think you fooled me into talking." He says, breaking you out of your trance. "Knowing all this won't help you escape, it didn't help anyone so far. Don't think you can play games." The threat is thinly veiled; he turns off the lamp, and sets the pen down. When your eyes finally adjust to the darkness, he's already in his bed.

This night is worse than the one before. You cannot stand to even close your eyes; it's not long until he stirs, waking with a gasp. It must have been only two hours of peace, when only the wolves howled. Now he breathes harshly through his nose, trying to calm himself, unsuccessful however. You tense in your corner, not daring to move, until you hear it. It's quiet, but unmistakable, a sob; he cries into his palms, pressing them hard against his eyes as if trying to forcefully erase whatever it was that he saw in his nightmares. How you wish you could forget as well. Drink away your sorrows, maybe. 

You don't know what you're doing - you think - as you push the thin cover off you and stand to watch him swallow the knots in his throat. Why would you feel sorry for him? Your ailment is his fault. Everything wrong with this place is his fault. It's his fault you're not home now, sleeping soundly in your own bed, and his fault people died by your hand. You're at his side and your hands tremble, half wishing he'd bark at you to go back to your place, kick you out, hell, even snap your neck right then and there. He doesn't.

You sit on the bed; the mattress is hard, and there's barely any space, but you're rail thin by now, starvation eating away at you day by day. You lie down next to him, on your side, facing him, and wait for his next move, whatever that might be. If you're to die, then so be it. No going back now. He doesn't look at you. He doesn't touch you. He doesn't speak, doesn't yell.

But his tense shoulders relax, hands dropping from his face. The question lingers in the air, 'what the hell are you doing', but he knows the answer would be just a shrug, an 'I don't know', confused by your own actions, so he doesn't ask. He presses his own back flat on the mattress, the small sigh drowned by the creaking of the springs. He closes his eyes and throws his forearm haphazardly over them, while you sit there, feeling the covers underneath him dip slightly with every mouthful of air he brings to his lungs, wondering what the hell you're about to start.


	6. Consequences Will Be Dire

You awaken to a stabbing pain in your shoulder that jerks you out of a dream you forget the moment you open your eyes. Your hand flies to it, meeting a bandage soaked in blood; some of it had seeped into the mattress during the night, leaving an irregular shaped stain - you discarded your sweater before you went to sleep, leaving you with only a thin tank, feeling suffocated in the aftermath of the bliss. You peel it off to assess the damage, preparing yourself for the sight to come; it's deeper than you remember, edges ragged, angry red, white fat tissue bubbling out. You look away, suddenly nauseated. The bliss must have acted as an anaesthetic, but now that it's completely out of your system, it hurts terribly, throbbing and burning.

It takes you a while to realize you're alone again, the half of the bed that you're not occupying cold. You didn't wake up last time when he left either. You worry yourself into exhaustion, then fall dead to the world outside. It's an escape, not a healthy one, but as long as it gets you through the night, you'll take it.

There's a knock at the door that startles you; Jacob doesn't knock. 

A woman lets herself in after a few moments; she's dressed in that same standard issue, apparently, cream sweater that everyone is wearing, an uniform of some sorts. She's holding what appears to be a first aid kit, yellow with a white cross. Odd combination. Odd timing too. Is he watching you?

"My name is Sarah," she says, when you don't respond to her greeting; her voice is raspy, but still pleasant, and awfully polite. You've expected these people who have no problems with the idea of human experimentation to be backwoods savages, not articulate persons with qualifications. You never know the monster beside you. You gape at her like a simpleton, crossing your arms in front of your chest in a defensive stance. "I'm a nurse, Jacob told me you might need my assistance." She points at your tense, bleeding shoulder. Nurse. This torture camp has a nurse. She calls Jacob by his first name, no rank, no over the top respect, no ass kissing. The man who trained you did so too. Jacob sent her to fix you up. You blink, relaxing your arms, as she reaches for you slowly, as if she's trying to comfort a scared animal. The knot comes undone, allowing her to completely remove the stained mesh. She mutters something under her breath, which makes your anxiety spike; it didn't seem infected, at your first inexperienced glance, but now you doubt what you saw. Do they even have antibiotics, and if they do, would they give them to you if it turns out you need them? 

"It's not infected," she says, clearing your fear. "It needs stitches, however." Your body flinches on its own accord, anticipating her next words. "I'm running low on anaesthetic…" She trails off, looking straight into your eyes, watching for a reaction. Whether that's a lie or not, it matters too little now. You can tell what she's thinking, tending to your wounds in Jacob's room, on his bed, that you've obviously been sleeping in. She disapproves, or is jealous, or just simply doesn't like you, who knows?

"It's alright," you steel yourself, determined to not make a single sound. You have to be strong. Whoever bandaged you the first time didn't do a very good job, and was clearly not trained medical personnel. You don't remember who it was, nothing between the moment you shot that last man and finding yourself with Jacob again. You've noticed this before, blackouts after the bliss exposure. Hours and hours of not recalling what happened to you - time running too fast; it's scary to think about. Disinfectant seeps in your wound, hissing and clawing like an angry cat, and you swallow a gasp. She pulls the edges together and threads the needle; there's a sudden, split second look of compassion on her face, before she plunges it in. 

The needle itself, cold and smooth, feels like nothing more than an insect bite; it's the thread that rubs against the edges of the punctures that bothers you, rough, warm with friction, a polar opposite. You're afraid your teeth are gonna crack with how tight your jaw is snapped shut, but you cannot wince or moan right now. No. You're not weak, you say to yourself. 

She cuts the thread with a small scissors, done; it feels like an eternity has passed, time crawling by as she stabbed and prodded at your flesh.

"Thank you!" You say, awkwardly, avoiding her eyes. 

"You should not make any sudden movements." She advises you. Should avoid getting shot at, you think bitterly; her words seem hypocritical, but you bite back any retort you had when she hands you a painkiller, still in its blister. You're hesitant to take it, but you know you'll need it. You can see it on her face that she did not expect herself to offer such kindness either. Perhaps she thought you'd put up a fight, be disobedient, insult her, anything but comply. You've surprised yourself too with how fast you accepted everything. You had to, otherwise it would have been you in a wolf's belly now. There's no water around, if you're to take the pill, you'd have to swallow it dry. 

About two hours pass, and no one else is coming. It occurs to you: for the first time, basically, you're free. At least to roam around without somebody breathing down your neck, without a schedule you're supposed to be following. 

There's new papers on Jacob's desk. Timetables with shipments, some prisoners, some wolves, most of them supplies. Exact date and time when they come and go. Why is he letting you see all that? You understand that you know very little about this place and how it works, most of the information coming from Jacob himself, so it could as well be all a huge lie, but at some point you might be able to piece them together. Is he setting you a trap? You pull back from the desk, losing all desire to leaf through the papers. The cork board is unchanged, same faces linked together with red thread. A bearded man, a woman with a stern face and a young man with long, black braids. Wolf's Den. You've seen it in other places as well, scattered papers he can't be bothered to organize. Whatever it is, Jacob's desperately looking for it, with not much success.

'Not talking.' Another two words that appear in conjunction with this Wolf's Den he seeks; he's been interrogating people. Another failure. One day though, he'll find that weak link, and snap it like a piece of sun baked plastic.

You listen at the door for a few minutes; there's no sounds coming from the hallway, no voices, no boots on the floor. You open the door slowly, wincing when it creaks, and poke your head out, glancing along the empty corridor. The walls are half old wooden paneling, half peeling white paint; there's a solid door just across - the small bathroom with the shower. You're not supposed to get your stitches wet, so a shower is out of the question, no matter how much you're craving for it, but it wouldn't hurt to clean up a bit, at least at the sink. 

You push the door open and step inside, wincing at the image staring back at you from the cloudy mirror. Your face has slimmed down considerably, dark circles accentuated by restless sleep. You look away. Blood had trickled down your arm in thin rivulets; you cup water in your hand and let it wash it away, swirling pink down the drain. You rinse your mouth and splash your face, relishing the coldness against your heated skin. You dare to look in the mirror once more, staring into your own dying eyes; murderer. You shake your head; it wasn't real. There were no bodies, no blood except your own. It wasn't real. You suddenly feel tired, weary; you drag yourself back into Jacob's quarters, happy to find them still empty. 

You take some time to look around more; two reindeer skulls on the wall, a row of file cabinets, a shooting range target with knife marks, a safe in the corner, a ham radio, monitors and a couple of old computers that you don't dare touch. There's a few books scattered on the floor at the foot of his desk, but none of the titles sound familiar to you. The mess surprises you, he's the last person you'd expect to be so scattered.

It's late when he comes back, you've already taken that painkiller, guzzling it down with water from the sink that you let pool in your palms, and you're dozing off, from boredom mostly. You flinch, standing as quick as you can, gritting your teeth through the stretch of your shoulder. You should have put your sweater on.

"Slacking off, I see." He taunts, setting a duffel bag that was hanging from his shoulder down on the floor. Something rattles inside. Your stomach growls; you haven't eaten anything all day, and he's brought you nothing. "I leave you alone for a whole day and all you do is lie around, tsk, tsk. Laziness is not something that I tolerate." You thought about leaving the room, but where to go? You've never been alone in the compound, except here, and when you were locked inside your old cell; always escorted, always someone there telling you where to go, what to do and how to do it. Someone to shield you from the looks you were getting sometimes from the others; were you alone, somebody might decide to act on their feelings. You're not one of them. Not yet. So you decided it would be safer for you to stay put. Besides, you didn't know when he'd get back, didn't know what he'd do if he found the room empty.

"The nurse," you try to explain, "she told me to not strain my shoulder." You feel like a child trying to shift blame onto your siblings. 

"How convenient." 

"You sent her." You chide, but quickly bite your tongue. "I didn't know what to do, no one else came for me."

"Do you need someone to hold your hand and tell you what to do every minute of your life?" He growls, pulling a chair to where he left his bag. It groans under his weight as he reaches down to undo the zipper. "You got wounded, most of my soldiers passed the first trial without a single scratch. You're still weak, you have to train more, do better." Next time, implied. "I'll send someone for you, if you need special invitation." You swallow the knot in your throat; you thought you did good, despite the wound, but now your optimism sinks, discouraged. He's pulling something from the bag.

It's a rifle, painted a metallic red and shining like it was brand new. It's beautiful. He catches you staring and chuckles, setting a cloth down next to the bag.

"What, you caught a taste for it now?" You tear your eyes away, suddenly embarrassed. How pathetic. "There's a lot going on inside that head of yours, I can tell," he says, starting to disassemble it piece by piece, aligning them on the cloth carefully, like he was handling porcelain. "Anger that I can work with, that you can work with." You look at him, carefully studying his movements; he's right about this one thing, but you're not about to admit it.

"You're making me kill people." You mutter. He scoffs.

"Please, you killed someone before I even got my hands on you." He says, wiping fingerprints off the stock. That night still flashes clear in your head. Your hand gripping the knife, burying it without giving it a second thought into the man's neck. Survival. Panic. That's all that was about. You begin to shake your head, but he interrupts you. "All I'm giving you is the opportunity. It's you who's pulling the trigger. It's all you, only you." You recoil, heartbeat picking up abruptly. Opportunity? He makes it sound like there's a choice not to pull the trigger. You know damn well what happens if you don't. Said anger bubbles in your chest now, but you force it down. You don't want him to be right. "Somebody once thought you weren't good enough." He continues, spearing you with his stare. You can't hold it, looking away after a few seconds. "Somebody hurt you. And now you're angry. Eager to prove yourself, to protect yourself. Am I right?" You don't want to grace him with an answer, instead focusing on the tips of your shoes. You want him out of your head, afraid he'll never disappear if you leave him in for too long.

"Why that song?" He doesn't answer you either; instead just resumes his cleaning, a trace of a smirk on his lips. He knows he's right now. Does the song mean something to him? Is it meant just for you, only you, or is he using it on others too? Others. 

"Where is he?" You ask, to break the silence. He knows who you're talking about, no doubt. You haven't seen him since the cages - if he was present when your other two friends were fed to the wolves, you don't know. He probably was forced to watch it as well, then dumped back into the cages to mourn his loss alone in the dark. 

"Not here." He says shortly, without other explanations. Clearly this is not the only outpost they have; this one here is the headquarters, then there's the hotel. There's a Judge training camp, you heard somebody talk once; other than that you don't know. Their grip on the county is powerful enough, there could be tens of them. If he doesn't want you to ever see him again, you won't.

"Why am I here with you?" You aren't entirely sure you want the answer to that question.

"God, it's like I'm stuck here with a four year old." You take a small amount of satisfaction by knowing you're annoying him, but it's best not to push it. "Would you rather be in the cage?" He rises up and you cower, reminded of the first time you saw him. First confrontation that sealed your fate. You shake your head. "Then don't be ungrateful." That's the end of that discussion; you tried to come up with theories, each more implausible that the other. They all come back to two things: you offing his hunter, and you grabbing his arm with no warning, to plead for your friend's life. By all means, he should despise you for those, but somehow it worked out in your favor, and you're no longer starving. No longer dirty and stinking, no longer cold, sleeping outside in the dirt.

The rifle is cleaned and put back together; he leaves it on the table, on top of his maps. You pull your legs to your chest as he climbs in the bed next to you, no intention to make you leave; for that part you cannot come up with many explanations. Maybe he craves company - it must be lonely, being this untouchable, unmovable leader to his men - maybe it calms his nightmares, you don't know. It benefits him, if he tolerates it.

You can't admit it, but his words rattled you; he can't possibly have a file on you, like he has for others. You're a nobody from thousands of miles away, falling into his hands by sheer bad luck. It was your actions that betrayed you, put you on a pedestal right from the start. You didn't come inside the compound with the others as equals, you stood out, and he was eager to pick you apart. Separate you. 

You wish you could see him, your friend, talk to him. You're glad he's standing his ground, but for how long. You wonder if Jacob told him you're alive. That he plans to make you try to kill each other. He's the only piece that's tying you to your past now, your former life, and Jacob wants to take that away from you as well. At that point, if you're the one to survive, you'll have nothing. 

It's too much, the loneliness, gnawing at you from the inside. You give in to a need for comfort so strong it makes your bones ache; you turn on your side sharply to look at his body next to yours; he looks asleep, but you know that will change soon. Your hand moves, the tips of your fingers brush against the shirt covering his chest, lightly, almost frightened not to spook him. His breath catches and you freeze - he wasn't sleeping; he remains still, and his silence encourages you. You lower your palm slowly until it's pressed flat against him; his skin burns through the material, burns all the taunting words he's ever said to you away from your mind. Your heart is beating hard, fast, thrashing against your ribcage, thudding like a cannon - you're certain he can hear it. You pull yourself closer, resting your forehead against his shoulder. Caution thrown to the wolves. 

Forever passes, none of you making a single sound; you allow yourself to relax, considering the danger has passed. Probably not smart. 

You hear him move before you feel it and your muscles tense again, almost painfully; there's a soft brush, almost imperceptible, of his fingers against the back of your hand, before he brings his arm up to cover his eyes. You smile without truly meaning to, allowing yourself to finally drift off to sleep.

The nightmare feels vivid; Judges tear at your ribcage while you watch and scream, arms paralyzed. Jagged teeth rip through flesh, stripping it to reveal white bone, growling low in their throats. The sound of your rapidly approaching death. Something wraps around you, warm and oddly comforting, before you realize that you're suddenly awake; the wolves are gone but the pain lingers, dull in your side. It's an arm, holding your waist, its possessor staring at you with an alarmed look on his face. You startled him. Your screams must have been real. Pulling away doesn't work, the grip becomes tighter, stopping only a sliver away from hurting you as well. Your face is in the crook of his neck, smelling sweat and something else, sweeter. Ill. His embrace doesn't comfort you, doesn't make you feel safe; how could it, when it's his fault. It's his fault, you're reminded. You rip away from him, pushing at his chest with your closed fist. 

His face twists.

You're four steps away from his bed, from him, now, scared and vulnerable, eyes wildly tracing his every move.

"Change of heart?" He says, taunting. You say nothing, backing off into an empty corner. He makes no move to come after you, instead lying back down again, sighing deeply. An old man, full of regrets. You slide down the wall, hugging your knees to your chest, letting tears fall free; it hurts everywhere - heart, mind. He shakes his head, but says nothing, letting you unravel; breaking down is not something high up on the list of things you want to do in front of him. But it's impossible to stop now, wracked by heavy sobs that shake your entire being. You're never going home. You're going to die here, sooner or later, either by his hand, or torn apart by wolves, or shot, or… 

"Stop crying," he growls, palms covering his face; you look at him, image warped with tears, blurry from swollen eyes. "Nothing's going to change if you sit there and snivel." What else can you possibly do? Your hands are tied, you have no say. You have no choice. How many times have you repeated that?

"Come back here and quit feeling sorry for yourself," he says, turning on his side, back towards you, "or you can sit there and wallow in your sorrows alone. Your choice." You want to prove a point, you do, but it's cold on the floor, your feet freezing and your hands trembling, weak. Weak. You're weak. You crawl back to him, feeding off his warmth. He's right. Crying won't solve anything. If you're to spend the rest of your life here, it cannot be in complete misery. 

It's him. He's the key. As long as he's happy, you're safe. You sigh, and curl up against his back, satisfied to hear his breath hitch. 


	7. Death Will Follow

Your shoulder heals fast, and you're somewhat grateful for it. It would finally give you something to do besides sit around. Despite his chastisement, Jacob allows you to stay until you are recovered enough, and splitting your shoulder open again is not an imminent danger anymore - a small mercy you weren't expecting; you offer to do something, anything to keep your mind off things, and he allows you to pick up his scattered books and arrange the files on his desk; a voluntary maid. Could've been worse. Most of the time, however, you just sit on the balcony, relishing the clean air and the gentle sun; you learn something important, sitting there on an extra sweater he brought you and watching people roam around the courtyard with your head leaned against the railing: every two days a truck with supplies comes, roughly around the same hour, then leaves about 40-45 minutes later, after it's done unloading. It's guarded however, its final destination unknown. You'd need more time to learn more about it, if you are to ever use it as a means to escape.

You never talk about what happens during the nights, never mention it. You don't dare to; it's a silent pact you unknowingly signed when you first crawled in bed next to him. He's barely there during the day; every morning you wake up to find him gone, which, to be honest, is more than fine with you. You wouldn't know what to say, what to do. It's easier in the dark, his face half obscured. Your minds get worse at night, you know that very well. Becoming your worst enemy, unreliable and untrustworthy. 

The nurse, Sarah, comes again after almost a week to take out your stitches and give your shoulder an experimental stretch; everything feels fine. No more slacking off. You wash the cut carefully at the sink, ghosting your fingers down its length. This one. Another jagged line on your forearm, where Jacob's knife caught you that first night. A small puncture on your left palm - the barbed wire you grabbed onto, desperate to pull your friends out from the Judges' jaws. All of those, permanent marks you'll carry with you for the rest of your life, be it long or short, attesting to your presence inside this concentration camp. 

You're being fed once a day, not a very significant amount, but enough to keep you full for five or six hours - the rest of the time you have to keep your fists tight and arms stiff by your side to stop the trembling, and when the dizziness settles in you're more than grateful for having a bed to lie down until it passes, or at least becomes more bearable. At least your access to the bathroom hasn't been restricted, and you can drink as much as you want from the faucet. 

He comes in earlier that night, looking satisfied with himself; you saw him leave with a bunch of his men that morning, from the balcony, carrying two tied up women in the bed of his white truck. On their way to the hotel for the indoctrination.

"I see your stitches are off." He says, sitting down at his desk, pulling a couple of blank sheets of paper from a stack. "You will resume your training tomorrow."

You sigh, and it comes out as more of a whine. You feel his eyes on you, ready to give you another lecture. You liked him better when he barely talked to you, except for barking orders.

"You're getting complacent on me here. I'm thinking of sending you away." Your head shoots up, biting your tongue to refrain yourself from immediately asking why. Does he want to get rid of you, does he no longer want your company? "Have you work with the Judges." Your stomach twists, nightmares threatening to become true. "Perhaps if you're strong enough, I'll grant you your own Judge." One of those beasts, in your hands. A smidge of power, although you're sure that if he were to sic it on you, and you'd tell it to stop, it wouldn't be you the one it will listen to. And a few moments ago all you were worried about is that he's bored of you already. You shudder, disgusted with yourself.

"My parents," you start, staring at the ground below your feet, "they breed sheep dogs to sell them to shepherds. I used to help them, when I was a kid." Humanize yourself; one of the suggestions in a long list of many, in the kidnapping survival guide. You smile, bitter, feeling the weight in your chest grow. It pains you to think of anything that was before. Are your parents still hoping someone would find you, still standing by their phones every day awaiting for some news? Are they still keeping your things, in case you'll ever return? Your clothes, your video games. Your rent, your car, your food slowly spoiling in your fridge. 

"A Judge is not a dog, nor a wolf." He pulls you out of your thoughts, displeased with your comparison. "It's much more than a simple animal." He's proud of his creations, like he's a God over them. Made them, trained them, perfected them. There's a knot in your throat that you cannot swallow away; this future prospect is not one that pleases you in any way. He's the key, you repeat to yourself. You need to stay close to him.

You need to escalate this. Take it to a next level, become something he can no longer do without. 

Think. How can you sell this? You might be able to find him attractive, if light hits him a certain way. You turn your eyes towards him, watching as he does his reports, praying he doesn't feel you studying him. Shaggy red beard, ears a bit too big, rough, scarred skin. Light blue eyes, icy most of the time, sometimes sad. Husky voice you hate to admit that you like listening to, despite his occasional wheezing. He takes care of his hair, but that's about it. The rest of him is almost always dirty; mud, sweat, blood. Weeping sores that smell sweet, sickly. Almost like the bliss.

"Are you done staring?". He says, finger on the off button of his lamp - it's already dark outside, dusted with stars. You look away, your face dusted red. He turns off the light and climbs in next to you, lightly brushing your knees with his arm as he takes the spot between you and the wall; he's never trapped you in there, you notice. Never initiated anything. It was all you. Only you.

Your mind blanks for a precious moment, heartbeat fast and uneven as you work up the courage to stand upright; he hasn't even closed his eyes yet. He watches you slightly puzzled when you turn towards him, slowly but surely moving your fingers to brush against his cheek, losing themselves into his beard. He watches your parted lips, inching closer to his face until they're pressed against his, simple and chaste. He pulls back after a second, scanning your face for anything odd.

"What the hell are you doing?" Ah, the million dollar question, the one he should've asked the first time around. You open your mouth, but there's no explanation. The truth is out of the question, the wheels are in motion, you're on a mission and you can't afford to stop; you brace your hands on his shoulders and straddle his hips, to avoid the answer. His hand finds your thigh, jerking forward by reflex, touch almost feather light - you can't believe it's coming from him. He shouldn't be capable of such gentleness. He doesn't seem convinced, doubt apparent in his expression. 

"Do you think you have to do this or something?" You hesitate for a second, your own ill intentions flashing through your mind, but you shake your head, pressing both of your hands against his clothed chest. You've never seen him without his shirt; the scars that disappear under his sleeves and collar must be marking his torso as well, and curiosity is now killing you. He breathes harshly through his nose, unsatisfied with your answer. "I'm not a rapist, kid, don't feel constrained to do shit you don't want." Kid. There's the reason why he never pinned you against that wall with his body, never felt the need to suffocate you against it. 

What noble feelings, coming from such a man.

"I want to." You say shortly, but perhaps your voice trembles when you do so, because his hand leaves your thigh and it feels cold and lonely now without his warmth. 

He shakes his head, pushing you gently off his lap. "Not tonight." Rejection spears your chest; he sees your shoulders sag and he chuckles. "Come here." He wraps an arm around them, guiding you to lie back down with your head on his chest, his heartbeat thunderous in your ear. You feel absolutely stupid.

Morning comes and there's a dull ache in your bones and a weight pressing down on your chest. He doesn't send you away, at least not today; instead you're delivered by one of his men to the courtyard for your training, alongside three more recruits. More than eager to be there, drinking in every word their trainer said. Volunteers, you think. Those that buy into Jacob's words and come willingly to join his program. The men in the red ski masks, you learned they're called Chosen - one of them sits in front of you now and corrects your posture, barking left and right for every mistake anyone made. Out the corner of your eye, you see the looks you're given, feel the hostility radiate off them; you keep your head down, suddenly feeling like the new kid on the block. A big, juicy target. No one there to help you.

"Hey Mark!" The Chosen drops his hands off your back and turns towards a man carrying a wooden box, stamped with the same black cross on their clothes. "Come help me out here for a sec." He sighs, and complies, leaving you alone with the pack. You pray they wouldn't dare, that this Mark would come back fast, but nobody seems to listen to your prayers nowadays.

"Hey!" He walks up to you and grabs your shoulder when you don't reply, forcefully turning you to face him. "I'm talking to you." He's young, beard patchy and eyes green and striking; his face is contorted in his hatred, uglifying his features. 

"You killed one of our own," he points at you - your face remains neutral, avoiding any further provocation. He looked pissed enough. It was his choice to be here, he believed in the cause. He doesn't get to judge you, though. "You don't belong here. You should have been made an example." A vein in your temple starts to twitch. 

"You think I want to be here, man?" You retort, voice suddenly tired. They sneer at you, outraged that you're not honored by this privilege - in their eyes. You feared this would happen. 

"Filthy sinner." He spits out, clenching his fists at his sides. "Jacob should've ripped your guts out and let the wolves eat you." 

Whatever snaps inside of you makes you see red. In two long strides, you're in his face, spitting embers from your eyes; he falters, recognizing perhaps the maniacal expression, and what it is that caused it. In your ears, your head, the muted tune starts to resonate. Your hand wraps suddenly around his throat, bringing him closer to you; he jerks, knocking it off with a swift move. He goes for your collar, brushing it with his fingers as you pull away. His wrist is in your hand now and you twist, twist until the sickening crack hits your ears, accompanied by the dulcet tones of screaming in pain.

Somebody else grabs your shoulders and throws you on the ground; you kick your leg out catching him in the shin, pulling yourself back to your feet in a split second. Your open palm meets his cheek and he squeals like a pig at the sting, and the humiliation that came with it. 

There's a hand on your upper arm that turns you around, and slams a fist into the side of your face, knocking you out of your rage. The Chosen has returned. He drags you by your arm towards the hospital before you can offer an explanation. Towards your punishment. Towards Jacob. Jacob would listen to you. Perhaps.

Except he's not taking you to Jacob. He walks you past the entrance, and to the cages; stomping your feet into the ground doesn't faze him, he jerks your arm harshly, like he wants to pull it out of its socket, and gives you a light smack on the back of your head. Child. Stop acting like a fucking child, that meant. The gesture makes you feel small, inadequate. Much like him rejecting you. 

There's fresh meat in the cages, of course. More and more people dressed in camo, with American flags wrapped around their necks. The resistance. The Whitetail Militia, according to Jacob's papers. Interrogation awaits them, then either conversion or a bullet to the back of their heads. You screwed up, you think as he shoves you into a cage with another woman, the front of her shirt splattered in so much blood that if it was all hers, she shouldn't have been alive. 

Jacob doesn't come for you that night. Nobody does. The woman's name is Doris, and it's her husband's blood on her clothes. You sigh, letting your head fall against the bars, rubbing your arms up and down to stop the shivering.

Morning comes, again, you haven’t slept, and the courtyard becomes uncharacteristically quiet; gravel crunches under the soles of military boots, an ominous sound that has most of them cower and crawl to the backs of their cages. Jacob's here. You rise, wrapping your hands around the bars, awaiting.

He doesn't acknowledge you; he walks amongst the cages, satisfied with the amount of uniforms he sees. One of them will talk. He picks them out, three men and one woman, dragging them out and making them kneel in front of him. 

"Now," he starts, voice low in his throat. "I have no use of toy soldiers such as yourself. Wearing a uniform doesn't make you a warrior. You're all weak. But you don't have to die in vain." He pulls out his pistol, red slider glimmering in the early morning sun. You take a step back, wincing when your shoes squeak on the gravel, but he doesn't seem to notice, too focused on his prey. "You see, you can still have a purpose. Talk."

One of the men, older, weary, seen too much probably, spits on the ground right before Jacob's boots, eyeing him with a disgusted look on his face. "You can go fuck yourself, you self righteous cu-" 

He doesn't get to finish. His head bursts open at the back, spraying brain matter, blood and pieces of bone. You flinch at the loud bang, covering your mouth to stop any noises from coming out, betraying your terror. One of the younger men kneeling beside the corpse weeps, whimpering into his collar; Jacob disposes of him next. He holsters his pistol, looking bored with this show already.

"Take them," he says to his Chosen. "Maybe we'll have better luck with them." The woman struggles when the man pulls her up, and he smashes the butt of his gun into the back of her head, growling insults under his breath. Jacob turns towards you suddenly; your blood freezes in your veins, articulations locking up and refusing to move. His gaze fixes you, rage smoldering.

"Take this one to my quarters." The Chosen that comes for you looks puzzled, like he's seen you before and he doesn't understand why you're here. He grabs your elbow and pulls you to your feet; he leaves you alone in front of the double doors, having not said a word the entire time. Maybe he feels sorry for you. Maybe he thinks you deserve it. You're scared to open the doors, but you can't linger there out in the open. You were right to not want to leave that room. It wasn't safe.

Jacob's definitely mad when he returns hours later, although his face doesn't betray it at first.

"You have a knack for acting like a goddamn child." There it is again. That’s all he sees you as.

"He insulted and threatened me." You feel justified in your anger, like you acted accordingly. He deserved it.

"And you should've kept your feelings in check." He growls at you. "First thing tomorrow you'll be transferred to Breakthrough. If you can't behave yourself around people then I'll put you with the dogs." 

This time you know his threat is no longer idle. Your feet bring you closer to him and your hand jerks, wanting to touch him, steer him away from that decision. He notices, eyes turning predatory out of the blue.

"So that's what it was all about, the other night. I thought it was odd." He set you up. “You're weak, but your will is strong enough, I'll give you that. You managed to push yourself to get close to me, even though I see how much I disgust you.. Don’t!” He silences you harshly before you can protest. What the hell were you going to say anyway? You know he is right. “All of that so I will protect you. Was this your plan from the start?" You shake your head, but he doesn't buy it. He chuckles, and his hand is suddenly on your throat, squeezing lazily. It scares you how you didn't see it coming; he's rarely so unpredictable, giving in to his urges to physically harm. He likes his brain scrambling too much, but you guess this time you did hit a nerve. You tap your forearm against his once, twice. It does nothing.

“What would you do, I wonder, if I stop playing along?” Tears start streaming down your face against your wishes, the pain in your windpipe getting the upper hand; he pulls himself back quickly, increasing the distance between your bodies as your fingers swipe for his face, unsuccessful.

“I indulged you, yes. But this is not the way to survive. If I discarded you, what would you do?" He repeats, tightening his fingers. "Find someone else to cling to? Roll over and die?" Black spots dance on the back of your eyes, blurring your vision. There's an emptiness in your chest as you indeed die slowly, drained of oxygen. You want to think of your mother, but somehow the image of her face slips your grasp. "Do you pride yourself with this? Being a parasite, a scavenger, _a whore_?" He growls at you, forcing you to focus on his face instead. Is he the last person you want to see before you die? The last to touch you, the last to speak to you? "You find the strongest specimen and grovel at its feet, weasel your way into its life." You cannot reach his face anymore, so instead you bury your nails into the old scars that litter his arm, relishing into the feeling of hot blood bathing your fingers. Your last chance. Last breath.

He laughs. “At least you got some fight in you.” He releases you and you fall to a heap on the concrete floor, gasping for air and clutching at your throat. You hear the mattress creak as he sits on the bed, drinking in your distress as he motions for you to come closer.

"Do your thing." He sneers. "Convince me." You sit there on your knees on the floor, wheezing loudly. Convince him of what, that you meant it? That you didn't climb into his bed just to soften him, to make him stop hurting you. To make him care. That you didn't do it just so he won't send you away. Stupid of you to assume this man had any semblance of humanity left in him. The shit he's seen, he's done, you cannot even imagine. His face contorts into a cruel snarl, its ferocity enough to jolt you awake and onto your feet.

The show must go on, you think to yourself. You can still pull this off; he knows you've been pretending, but he still keeps you here. Still hasn't killed you, still hasn't thrown you in a cage. You're giving him something he's craving, willingly or not, something that he cannot go without now that he has had a taste. You've reached your first goal. 

You walk towards him and put your trembling hands on his shoulders, dragging his jacket down his arms and freeing him from its confines. He doesn't move, lets you run your fingers over his now bare arms, bleeding from the crescent shapes you dug into him, then the back of his head, bringing his face closer to your chest, where your heart threatens to hammer its way out of its cradle. You feel him sigh against your clothes. 

"Get out." 

You freeze, arms tensing around his neck. You shake your head frantically, suddenly panicking. Get out and go where? To the cages? To the wolves? Dig your own grave outside in the mud, lie in it and wait to die? You hate to admit it, but you don't believe you have it in you to pass the rest of his trials, you don't make the cut. Not even he can make a soldier out of you, not in such short time. You should be dead. You're not dead because you found something nobody else was willing to give to him, and presented it to him on a silver platter. Sold yourself to have a chance to live miserably another day.

You cling to his broad shoulders like he's your lifeline in the middle of a rocking sea, all shame forgotten.

"Don't make me say it again." He threatens.

"No." He raises his head from your chest to drill holes into your skull with his blue stare. The show must go on. You swallow, mind racing to find the magic words.

"You need me as much as I need you." It is a stretch, a long shot if you ever saw one, but he seems intrigued, waiting for you to continue. "I need you to survive, I'm not strong enough. Not yet." Stroke his ego. "And you need me for this." You bend down and press a chaste kiss to his forehead, flattening the hair on top of his head under your palm. He relaxes, says nothing and for a moment you prepare yourself to bask into the sweet aroma of your victory. Until he finally speaks and bursts your bubble. 

"Get out." 

You get up, suddenly furious. "No!"

"Don't raise your voice at me." His tone is still level, but that means nothing. When he bursts, you won't see it coming; you can still feel his hand at your throat.

"I am strong." You go back on your previous statement, trying to prove a messed up point to a man who only a few minutes earlier almost killed you. "I bled your man like a stuck pig." You spit out in his face. "I am the only one who dares touch you. I am the only one who dares argue with you. I survived." Up until now, at least. "Not in the way you'd want me to, but I fucking survived. I'm still here." 

He regards you with a blank face, and you feel the adrenaline wearing off, replaced by dread.

He laughs. It's short and humorless, but it's something, instead of the unreadable dead eyed stare. "Fucking hell." He pulls you closer, his face burying into your stomach; your desire for his attention fights with the alarms ringing inside your head, warning of impending doom. Too much; your skin crawls as he slips a hand under fabric, pressing into soft tissue. "Spin your little web of lies then. Careful you don't catch yourself in it." 

  
  



	8. Guardian Angel

You gasp as he pulls you down by your hips to straddle his legs, your shirt yanked over your head, warm lips roaming your chest, the drag of his beard tickling you, turning into scratching the more frantic he becomes.

"No." You push at his shoulders when he doesn't stop, panic bubbling in your chest. What happened to 'I'm not a rapist'?

He ceases his nipping at your skin, looking up to your face.

"Changed your mind already?" His hands tighten on your hips, bringing them closer to his own; the drag makes you exhale suddenly, squinting until you can barely see him anymore. It feels wrong, forced, fear instead of arousal pooling in your core. Was there ever arousal? Every single time you've ever touched him seemed surgical and cold, no passion or desire whatsoever, just made to fulfill a general need for proximity at first, and later turned into a failed attempt at manipulation. Spectacular fail, you may add.

"Yes, yes, I changed my mind." Words spill out of your mouth faster than you can process them, eager to pull yourself away from this situation. "I don't want this anymore."

"So you were full of shit." He laughs again, that humorless bark, a sign of annoyance that makes you jump and your blood run cold. You nod, unable to lie anymore, not now.

"I was." You hate how your voice trembles, how scared he makes you. "But not before. I didn't start this so you given… you'd give me special treatment." You stammer, your English slipping. It makes his grip on your hips falter, as he regards you with an odd look on his face; a reminder perhaps of how young you are, and how far away you are from home. How afraid you must be.

"What was it then?" His hands leave your hips to run along your thighs slowly, squeezing softly on their way down. You try to think. It's getting cold, goosebumps erupting across the bare skin of your arms; his palms smooth them, almost delicately. Almost like it means something.

"I was scared and lonely," you admit, cheeks starting to burn with shame, "and you…" A pause, carefully choosing your words. Making him more mad than he already was would be suicide. "You were having nightmares, you looked like you needed someone to comfort you. Isn't that why you brought me here in the first place?" 

He tsks, looking away for a second, before coming back to stare you down once more. "I was thinking about it, yes." He sounds honest, for once not mocking or threatening you. God, this man was strangling you ten minutes ago, and now you're about to have a heart to heart while he's holding you against his body like nothing ever happened. "Ever since you fucking threw yourself at me so I wouldn't hurt your friend. That was stupid, by the way." It was, yes, if it led to this. "I wasn't going to do anything to him, that was all your fault." So what, that was another small mindfuck of his, another test for your reactions? "I didn't think you'd take the matter into your own hands at all, let alone this fast."

To sum up, it's all on you. Only you - you grit your teeth, chasing away the tune. He slides his hands across your back, pulling you almost flush to his clothed chest; you brace yourself against his shoulders, squirming into the embrace. His breath is hot, too hot on your neck. 

"Relax," he growls, bracing one hand on your lower back and one on your ribcage, fingers raking against your skin. It doesn't help at all. "I'm not gonna do anything more. But this you owe me." You whimper softly, petrified and unsure if you can trust him or not. You're starting to think it was incredibly dumb of you to start this. He might have enough self control and respect for your wishes to not force himself on you, but there's still a lot of other ways that he can hurt you. His hand finds the back of your neck, holding your head still as he bares his teeth to bite down hard into the flesh. You gasp, body recoiling, attempting to pull away, but he has you by your throat like a wolf seizing his prey; you feel panic begin to take you over, whimpering and squirming. When he lets go his lips glisten, stained pink, and the cold air hits the wet, throbbing spot. A brand high up on your neck that you can't possibly hide.

"You can go now," he says, loosening his grip on you. You pull away as fast as the shock allows you, and take a few steps back, until you're sure he cannot reach you before you can react. Your fingers fly up to touch the wound, against better judgement, and you hiss when it starts to sting. He stands up and opens a drawer in his desk, pulling out a small bottle of sanitary alcohol and a square patch of sterile gauze. He holds them out for you to see as he approaches you, a peace offering. You allow him to press the alcohol soaked gauze to the wound, cleaning it gently; it still burns, it still makes you gasp and hiss. You still pull back when he's done, his deed not forgiven.

"You can sleep there if you want." He points to the mattress that's still sitting in the corner. Another small mercy, insignificant though, compared to the things he's just done to you. You feel an absurd urge to thank him, but you smother it the best you can.

You barely manage to sleep, jumping at every noise that sounded even remotely like him getting out of bed, him changing his mind and coming to finish the job. 

You feel like you've only just closed your eyes two minutes ago when the mattress shakes under you; Jacob hits it one more time with the side of his boot, for good measure.

"Rise and shine, sweetheart," You open your eyes, vision blurry; there's a burn in your gullet, despite not eating anything all night and half the previous day. Just pure acid. "Don't make me drag you up from there, I'm not gonna be nice about it." You believe him. You sit up slowly, head swimming; you can barely keep your eyes open as you force yourself to your feet.

"Come." He says shortly, disappearing through the double doors; you have to jog to keep up with his long strides, and it doesn't do any good to that budding headache you feel forming right above your brows.

He takes you behind the hospital, walking through a metal bar gate inside the makeshift shooting range where you trained with the handgun. An impressive rack filled with guns sits just a few steps to your left - most of them you can't name, haven't even seen their kind before. The only familiar one is an AK-47 with a desert paint job. Does this mean he'll let you stay? Bringing it up now sounds like a mistake. 

"That pistol is not gonna cut it anymore." He starts, crossing his arms in front of his chest; among the burns and sores, you can see the marks your fingernails left in his flesh, deepset, edges still red. "I feel generous today, so I'll let you take your pick." The trials; for a brief moment you had forgotten all about it, too busy with the immediate threat that Jacob himself posed. He seems relaxed now, but from time to time you can see his eyes dropping to glance briefly at the bite mark he left on you. It still stings.

"I'd like to try that Kalash." You point at the AK-47 rifle sitting low on the rack. 

"What did you call it?" He asks, genuinely curious, picking it up and handing it to you. It's lighter than you were expecting.

"Kalash. Kalashnikov," you explain, "the name of its inventor." He props the stock firmly against your shoulder, so the recoil doesn't tear it off. You flinch at his touch, his closeness, flashbacks of last night intruding in your head. "He died a few years back." You continue to talk to keep the memory of his hands on your skin at bay. "Lived a long fucking life, unlike the men and women at the wrong end of his creation." He switches the safety off, aligns your head with the sights. 

"Did he have any regrets?" He humors you, encouraging your babbling - keeps a hand on your shoulder blade as you fire once, twice, three times, filling the closest target with lead. 

"Rumor has it he did. Wrote a letter to the patriarch of his church, asking if he will be forgiven." He pulls away from you as you aim - the recoil staggers you and the bullets miss, ripping through foliage behind the chain link fence. You make a disappointed noise in the back of your throat, gripping the rifle tighter with your hands.

"Penance rarely absolves you of the things you've done wrong." You drop the sights from your eyes to turn towards him and look at his face, his eyes cast down, half closed. You were right. Regret eats away at him, but what is it that he regrets? That's not a question you can simply ask. You put the weapon back on the rack. He lifts his head as you get closer, reaching out one hand to brush against his own; you're officially insane. He flinches when your fingers touch the back of his hand, but goes lax when you squeeze his palm gently. Reassuring. Way too intimate.

He pulls away after a moment, scanning your face. Looking for any sign of dishonesty in your actions, any foul play. When he finds nothing, he signals you to keep going. You pick up the gun again, turning around, facing your targets; he keeps you there until late at night with almost no breaks, until you feel like you've got the hang of it. Barely.

He feeds you dinner for the first time that night, watching you with his arms crossed in front of his chest as you eye the plate he puts in front of you suspiciously. What's he playing at? You find no catch, and bite into the salted tomato, closing in your eyes in pure bliss when it explodes in your mouth, filling it with juice. It escapes through your lips and runs down your chin, attracting his eyes; you wipe it gingerly with your fingers and pop them inside your mouth as well, cleaning them thoroughly with your tongue. Waste nothing, you might not have this chance again. It makes you sad to think about it.

"Told you I'm feeling generous today." There's a change in his demeanor, you've noticed it this morning, more bashful than downright taunting. You do wish he had more days like this one; you nod in appreciation, mouth too full to form words. He's amused, a smile, an actual, genuine smile curling his lips - that never happens. It's always cruel, always mocking. He shrugs off his jacket and takes his shoes off, aligning them at the end of his bed - something he picked up in the army, most likely. The mattress creaks under his weight, it always does, and you don't fully understand why he puts up with it. He could have anything his heart desired, and he chooses this. You set the now empty plate aside and join him, curling up against his side.

You were starting to doze off when he stirs, and your head, resting on his shoulder, falls on the mattress. His hands search for you in the darkness, finding your arm and clutching it in a vice like grip until you gasp, a pained and indignant sound. His grip falters; his breath is labored and his skin clammy and cold - your heart beats harshly against your ribcage, startled. You think he's still asleep at first, shaken by a nightmare, but as you prop yourself on one elbow you notice his eyes are open. Staring at you. Hungry. A shiver runs down your spine as he leans forward to find the crook of your neck with his lips, sighing heavily against your skin; your hand catches his, conflicted. There's a lump in your gut that has nothing to do with the food, and everything to do with him working his way up your throat, until he reaches your lips and hesitates. It's you who eventually closes the gap, giving him the encouragement he needs.

He climbs on top of you, parting your legs with his hips, and suddenly it's too much; you move a hand to press it to his chest, but it's weak, unconvincing.

"I'm only gonna ask you once," he leans down to growl in your ear, "and you better think about it long and hard, cause if you change your mind later I don't know if I'll be able to stop." His breath is heavy already with anticipation, drawing himself closer to you, ready to consume you. "Now, do you want this? Just me and you, no catch, no ulterior motives." 

Think. It's hard to, with him so close to you, so warm and inviting. You're the one who started it, put the idea in his head in the first place. You would have done it, to save yourself; whether you would have enjoyed it or not was up for debate, but for the sake of your own safety you would have endured his hands on you. Fuck, what has become of you? You raise your hand to wrap it around the back of his head, shaved skin smooth under your fingertips - you're still not safe, and you won't be until there's at least one ocean between you and him. You nod, but he's not satisfied.

"Use your words, kid." You squirm; you really wish he wouldn't call you that, not when you're pinned beneath his body, your inner thighs touching his hips. Not when he looks at you like he can't wait to dig into you, should you allow it. 

"Yes, I want this. But…" He frowns, starting to pull away - you let go of his head to catch his upper arm, stopping him from leaving you. "I want you to take your shirt off." He looks at you questioningly for a moment; you've crossed a boundary, perhaps, but you want him vulnerable, completely open.

After what feels like an eternity, he grabs his shirt by the collar and pulls it over his head, exposing his upper body. It's a gnarly sight; his left shoulder and pectoral are a brown, scorched mess, skin rough and thick. Circular bullet wounds litter the right side of his abdomen, echoing on his back, where they went through his body. You trace a long, thin, white line going from his navel down towards his hip; "I'm sorry." You whisper.

"You feeling sorry doesn't help me with anything." Leaning down, he presses his lips against yours, growing hungrier with every second; you allow him inside, allow his tongue and his hands to explore every inch of your body, once everything is exposed and his for the taking. Allow him to fuck you slowly, a lot gentler, a lot more careful than you were expecting, until you're both spent, moaning and gasping into each other's embrace.

"Tomorrow." He growls in your ear before he rolls off of you and leaves you to catch your breath.

You wake up the next day, dread creeping up on you the second you become conscious, before you even open your eyes. It's not at the Grand View this time, it's right there in the courtyard, in front of the entrance to the massive building that he takes out the music box, watching every twitch of your muscles as he winds it. You think to plead with him, right before it opens, drowning out the buzzing in your head.

"Cull the herd." _Changed your mind?_ His voice echoes, transporting you back to that night that you tried your best to avoid processing. You thought he was going to kill you. Rape you. Whatever the hell that was that came after, it was a lie. He's not the forgiving type. There's a knot in your throat unwilling to go away; a deep breath serves to calm you down, but not enough. In the end you both got what you wanted - you can still feel him inside of you, stretching you, but you get to stay, in his shadow, protected from everything and everyone else but him.

Bliss courses through your system and the song howls in your ears. You grip the gun - it feels odd in your hands, like he's testing you too soon - and for a brief moment, your thoughts are clear. Only you, only you get to decide what will become of you; you can put that gun to your head, pull the trigger, end it now before he can stop you. No more mind games. 

You can hear the men shouting now. They are coming. 


	9. Abandonment Issues

_Kill_. Jacob hisses in your ear, making you jump and abandon your tempting self harming thoughts. It doesn't feel right, this environment, this gun, the look of pure rage painted on the faces of the men coming for you, itching to bring you down; unprepared, that's the word you were looking for, that's exactly how you felt.

"Cull the weak!" _Whore!_ You jump, bliss kicking your weary nerves, yelling at you to _move, move, for fuck's sake!_ You mow down the first round, bodies disappearing into clouds of smoke. You notice something before one of them falls. The uniforms. Same camo as the militia soldiers in the cages, same flag knotted around their necks, punctured now by your bullets.

Realization hits you hard enough to knock you out of the bliss for a moment, suddenly inhaling a lung full of cold, deliciously fresh air. 

You see his face on the soldier that comes for you next - that young man that cried when his comrade's brains got splattered on the gravel behind him. You miss completely; the burst flies way over the man's head as recoil makes the gun slip from your hand and twist. You're still gripping it, though precariously. Your lack of solid training shows when losing the bliss' focus; he opens fire upon you, his bullets tearing through your thigh and abdomen, bringing you down on one knee; you howl like a wounded animal, blood seeping through the fingers you press at the entry holes.

Suddenly, bliss surrounds you, warm and inviting, and you black out as you pull the trigger yourself, filling his chest with lead.

When you wake up again, the ceiling above you is slanted; you blink, trying to correct your blurry vision, but it stays that way. It takes you some time to realize it's not an actual ceiling at all, but the canvas of a big tent, and you're lying on what appears to be a foldable bed. A campaign hospital, in the middle of a war zone. 

You smile, languid and stupid, bright spots dancing in front of your eyes. Bliss coursing through you; are you hallucinating?

The trial, you remember suddenly. It's not done, they're coming to kill you, finish the job; the steady beeping counts down the seconds you have left, seemingly getting faster and faster with each moment.

You see her, in the corner of your vision, wearing a white lab coat instead of the militia uniform, disguised, approaching you with confident steps, speaking to you. Confusion takes you over, until you realize that you know her. You recognize her from earlier, when she tended to your wounds.

The beeping steadies; it's not a countdown. It's a heart rate monitor, hooked up to your body; you're stiff with bandages and loopy with the painkillers pumped into you. Consciousness slips away from you again, too weakened to keep you going.

They tell you, when you come to your senses for the final time, that you've been there almost two weeks, that the bullets passed right through you without much damage, and that, although you've lost a considerable amount of blood, you're incredibly lucky. You curse inside your head, laughing bitterly at the same time. Damn luck. 

Well, not being dead means you actually passed the trial; except you don't remember anything that happened after you recognized the militia uniform. You ask Sarah, the nurse, what exactly went on; she looks at you like she knows she's not really the right person to explain that to you, but she tries anyway.

"You were starting to come out of the bliss so we had to up the dose." She said, having the decency to avoid your eyes. "It happens sometimes, due to the subject receiving a sensory shock, usually visual or auditory."

Subject; what a lovely way to refer to you to your face. "So the more bliss you pump into a person, the stronger, or more enhanced, they become. More resilient, faster and so on?" You ask. There was no way in hell you could have shot down all those people unassisted, just yourself, with only one day of training with that gun; one hell of a pick me up, you think. 

"Physically, yes." She agrees. "For the mind however, there is a limit that, should it be crossed, leads to a collapse. Differs from individual to individual."

Mindless zombies at your disposal; wonder why Jacob doesn't go for that. Perhaps he's more into subtlety, spying and infiltration. He sure is putting his military knowledge to good use - you think, begrudgingly. "Do you know my limit, or you just took a gamble there?" She doesn't answer, clearly not happy with your comment; she tended to you, however, so you can't keep up the hostility. You're grateful for that, no matter what.

"Where are we?" You ask, frowning a little, trying to see through the small gap between the tent's folds. You don't remember seeing such a tent at the veterans center.

"Breakthrough Camp." She says, and your stomach drops, widening your eyes; Jacob kept his word after all. "We needed better equipment than that we have at the center. We should be back there in a short time, now that you're awake."

You turn your head abruptly, nearly giving yourself whiplash, on top of everything else. "We're going back?" She nodded, before picking up her clipboard with her latest observations about your state and leaving you alone. 

He did that on purpose, you think; sending you to the exact place he threatened to exile you to, just to scare you for a second. The nurse probably screwed up by telling you so early.

You're not entirely happy to be back at the center, scrutinized by the eyes of the guards and the Chosen as you limp towards the building, assisted by a wooden cane. You see one of them shaking his head, turning away from you in disgust; you know what word runs through their heads. Weak. It doesn't matter if you pass the trials, if you nearly die at the end of it too. 

Jacob is inside his office when you walk in, suddenly feeling like you don't belong in there anymore. When did you ever belong there? - you ask yourself. He regards you coldly and you half expect him to kick you out; you're nearly useless to him now. Just an ordinary bed warmer.

"Did you eat?" First thing he says to you, after a small while; you gape at him like an idiot for a second, taken aback, but regain your composure quickly. 

"No." You say; he pulls out a chair and pushes it to slide on the wooden floor, stopping just two steps from your feet.

"Sit." He orders, getting up and leaving you to plop down a little too hard on the chair, making it rattle and protest. You expected something completely different from him, more contempt, perhaps.

When he comes back, he brings food for both of you, for the first time. He puts your plate on your lap and goes to his desk; you watch him eat in small bites, chewing carefully, slowly - so different from how you've pictured him devouring his food, ravenous like a starving wolf. You know he was admitted to a hospital after his discharge, although you don't remember how you obtained that information; the pills they put him on must have affected his stomach, along with the stress. 

"What am I going to do with you?" He asks suddenly, looking at you through his eyelashes; you freeze with a piece of bread in your mouth, swallowing it all in a big knot that scratches its way down to your stomach. "I don't know how you passed the trial. Sheer stubbornness, I guess. Dumb luck, maybe. The problem is…" He paused to take another bite, chewing just as slow as before. "I don't need lucky soldiers. I want true strength and skill, not someone whose stars may or may not align." 

You look down, feeling scolded; what the hell was he expecting? He picked you up from the middle of a tourist camp, put a gun in your hand for the first time in your life and ordered you to kill. 

"You're a fast learner, I'll give you that, and quick to defend yourself. That's the sole reason why I'm still willing to go on with you." He returns to his food; you've lost your appetite, but meals come rarely around these parts, so you can't waste it. You force another bite down your throat, with some difficulty.

Something is bothering you, however. 

"That knife fight..."

"I let you cut me." He interrupts, seeing where you were going with it. "Like I said, you were quick to defend yourself from my hunters, so I was intrigued. Especially with a knife, see, anyone can pull a trigger from a distance, but to get up close and personal…" He whistles, low, and it bothers you even more.

Was everything really up to chance with you? "I didn't mean to kill him, you know?"

He shrugs, finishing his plate; you get up, leaning hard into the cane to put your own plate on the desk, moving towards his bed. You need to lie down, doesn't matter if it's next to him.

When he joins you later, your chest feels constricted, like it's being crushed by a large serpent, wrapped around you tightly. You never thanked him for the food, you realise. 

"Thanks." You say, and from the way he looks at you you realise he misunderstands what the thanks are for. 

"I believe in giving people a chance to prove themselves. Sometimes maybe even a second one, should they behave." He reaches his arm towards you suddenly and pulls you closer to him, the side of your body pressed into his front. You feel like you owe him something, and he's expecting it now.

You move your hand to undo his belt, mechanically, but he stops you, catching your wrist before it touches the belt buckle. 

"I'd rather we don't do that again." He says, letting go of you to allow you to retreat your arm; confused, to begin with. He sees it on your face. "Can you, hand over heart, honest to God, tell me right now that you didn't feel in the slightest obligated to please me." You frown, but have no retort - you cannot lie to yourself. "Some men think rape only means holding someone down and forcing yourself on them. I am aware of the more subtle ways you can coerce someone. You are my prisoner, you are in no capacity to fully give consent." His morality surprises you once again; that night he was more on the edge, more eager, triggered by your own actions. He contradicts himself sometimes, driven by more animalistic instincts who win over his logic train of thought. You pause for a second to think. 

"All those people you killed, starved, beaten up and humiliated," you begin, "and this is where you draw the line?" You shouldn't complain. You really shouldn't. 

"That is different." He laces his fingers on the back of head, staring idly at the ceiling. "I am doing it for Joseph, for his cause." You begin to shake your head - you can't possibly understand.

"You think I'm a monster, capable of anything?" He continues. You cock your head to the side; 'something like that, yes' - you think. 

“I am not interested in sex.” He says, turning his head towards you. “I shouldn’t have touched you, but you tried to control me, and that pissed me the hell off.” You move your eyes away from him, face burning up; shame from being caught, perhaps. “So I accepted your challenge, I wanted to see what exactly you have to offer that you think would subdue me. Hell, I didn't even think I'd be able to get it up, after all this time.” He strokes his chin. You see him turn his head back towards the ceiling out of the corner of your eye; you feel better without his stare on you, though you wish he’d stop talking as well. “Honestly that second night I thought you were gonna back off again. I hoped you would.” He closes his eyes, a hint of a smirk curling his lips. “Using your body to get what you want is dangerous. Don’t do that again.” 

A challenge. A fucking challenge?

"What the hell is wrong with you?" You demand an explanation. He laughs.

"Oh honey, if we do that, we'd be here all night." But we are going to be here all night - you think. We are going to be here for the rest of our lives. 

You turn your back on him, irritated and ashamed; whatever the hell happened back then, it was way more complicated that either you or he could put into words, consent and intentions dubious at best. Sleep it off, you think. You’ll feel less muddled in the morning.

You don’t get to sleep until morning. A loud scream wakes you up suddenly while still pitch black, making you jump and your ears ring, your heart beating in your throat; it takes you two seconds to pinpoint where it's coming from. Jacob thrashes violently, teeth now clenched, sweat dripping off his forehead down his temples. He's scaring you. You put a hand on his shoulder, shaking him, trying to wake him up; it turns out to be a mistake. He's up in a moment, holding your collar with both hands and tugging it forward until it digs painfully into the back of your neck. He doesn't recognize you; your hand tightens around him, in an attempt to both keep your balance and to snap him out of his nightmare induced haze. He jumps like he was scorched when your grip gets stronger, digging into his flesh.

"Get off of me!" A growl, low in his throat. He shoves you and you fall in a heap on the floor; the impact sends a shock wave through your barely healed wounds and you wail, your entire body locking up. The heel of his palm presses hard against his forehead; you've seen him do this before, trying to contain his headache. You remain on the floor, curled in on yourself, gasping softly and clutching your abdomen; he seethes, looking at you like you’ve done something incredibly stupid. And you have.

“Are you hurt?” He asks, wiping sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand; he makes no move to help you back up, so you grit your teeth, gripping the edge of the bed with both your hands and lifting yourself up, your thigh throbbing and burning.

“Yes.” You said begrudgingly, wanting to pin this on him. It is on him, partially. 

He sighs, exasperated, running a hand through his wet hair. He looks at you as you stand over him, by the edge of the bed, reluctant to get back in.

"That was stupid." He concludes; what was he expecting though? He woke you up brutally, ripping you out of a dream and shoving you back to reality, forcing you to react in a fraction of a second, with your messed up, blissed up mind. He softens, however, unexpectedly, a few moments after, helping you back into the bed and feeling around your ribcage. You squirm until he throws you a stern look; he doesn't feel anything out of place.

"It's fine." You reassure him, pain subsided, but he misunderstands, again.

"It's not fine. I could have killed you." 

Would it have been such a big deal? - you want to ask him, but decide against; he has no patience for your angst, most of the time. 

In the morning he gives you a wrist watch; an "I'm sorry" gift, perhaps. You remember your bracelet, the one they took at the hotel and never gave back. This must have belonged to someone else as well. Doesn't he realise he's just piling evidence against himself? Jewelry, driving licenses, fucking lists of people he's kidnapped, down to a T. How well connected are him and his brothers, that they care so little who knows what about them. This could be so much messier that you first thought. 

He's still sitting in front of you, a bit too close, as if waiting to tell you something; you look at him a bit puzzled, encouraging him with your eyes to spit it out.

"Your friend failed the trial." He says eventually, watching your face drop. 


	10. Failed Savior

You open and close your mouth several times, like a suffocating fish, stranded on land; your last connection to your old life is gone, leaving you completely deserted, cornered from all sides by a vicious enemy. Only one thing gives you some sort of comfort; there will be no sacrifice, no dog fight, and none of you will have to spill the blood of the other. 

"You're happy he's dead?" Relief must have been apparent on your face, enticing a cruel smile from him. "You ask what's wrong with me," he mocks, drawling, "when the question you should be asking yourself is what is wrong with you. You kill a man and you're not even a little bit torn up about it. Do you have no conscience?" 

He scans your face for a reaction, a smidge of regret, anything. There's almost none that you can find. That man was attacking you. You haven't seen his face. Too much had happened in a very short amount of time that he just got crammed with the rest, back in a corner of your mind; your brain's attempt to save what was left of your sanity. 

"You throw yourself at a man, what, twice your age, just for your personal gain." He continues, and you grit your teeth; low blow. Jacob took your offer, eventually, even if it was just to try you, humiliate you, teach you that two can play that game, you are powerless, and the edge you thought you had was dull. Still, he admitted he was curious, and that gives you a tiny bit of hope that later you might get to play that card again, as degrading as it might be. 

A sentiment of disgust washes over you, and you feel dirty, used; ironic, isn't it? - you say to yourself, thinking about how you were planning to use him. You're the last one standing, and for what? To become a rag for him to use when he pleases, cater to his every need? 

He should've survived, instead of you. At least he had a sense of dignity.

Jacob sighs when you don't answer him, as if he is exasperated with you. 

"Go back to sleep. You need to recover, if you still want to be of use." Your heart stills for a split second; you know what happens to the useless, the weak, in this place. Reluctantly, you climb back into his bed, shouting hypocrite at him inside your head.

Sleep comes to you with much difficulty, as your friend's death finally sinks in and you cry into your pillow, feeling lonely and guilty. 

When you're finally recovered enough to walk on your own two feet, without the cane's help, he sends you to the main gates and tells you to wait; you sit there leaned against the huge wrought iron gates, remembering vaguely when you saw them for the first time, lying on your back in the bed of a truck, tied up. They seem less intimidating now; you've seen greater horrors behind them. 

He brings the truck up front and motions for you to get in; your blood pumps a steady, rather fast, rhythm in your ears, scared. You have no idea where he's taking you, he hasn't told you, or given you any sort of clue. It's only about three or four kilometers away from the center that he notices the strained look on your face, and laughs.

"Calm down, sweetheart, nothing bad's gonna happen to you." You sincerely doubt that, but your jaws appear to have fused together and don't allow you to voice your concerns. You wince at the way too domestic nickname and turn your head to look out the window, watching mindlessly as trees go by. He lets you worry for another ten minutes, before enlightening you.

"We're going hunting," he says, taking a sudden turn onto a beaten path through the forest. "I got a sudden itch to shoot something." He grins at you, leaving you to freak out in silence afterwards. You have read somewhere on the internet before about a serial killer releasing his victims into the wild and hunting them afterwards; your forearms erupt into goosebumps and it takes a vigorous rubbing to make them go down. 

He stops the car and even opens the door for you; you nod curtly, your mouth still a tight line. He picks up an army duffle bag out of the backseat, pulling out the rifle, glinting red in the sunlight. You stay put, although in your head someone, another version of you, screams and implores you to run. He'd kill you with no hesitation; you're not that much of a promising soldier, apart from a few outbursts of anger, and dumb luck, as he put it. Your only redeeming quality right now is your unconditional obedience; and the fact that you look nice in his bed. 

Your self-worth plummets and you follow him like a lost puppy through the woods; he instructs you to walk on his footsteps only, to make as little noise as possible. As large as he is, he moves quietly, sneaking with ease through the trees and the foliage. 

He raises his hand suddenly, making you stop dead in your tracks, holding your breath to keep yourself from making the slightest of sounds; scaring away his game was a sure way of becoming game yourself. 

He crouches down and you follow, peering through the leaves to catch a glimpse at what he was seeing; it's a pair of reindeer, unaware, grazing the ground with their snouts. Jacob's rifle is trained on the smaller one, his breath shallow, awaiting for the right moment.

You close your eyes when it happens, the shot ripping through your eardrums, reverberating in your chest. There's a terrible wail and sounds of hoofs hitting the ground, running away scared and for a moment you pray Jacob missed. 

He didn't. The larger deer was gone, but Jacob’s target lies dying in the grass, exhaling harshly through its nose. It doesn't suffer for long, and that's a small blessing; Jacob motions for you to come closer.

"I've never seen a reindeer this close before." You say in a small voice, looking with sad eyes at the dead animal.

"Caribou." He corrects you, slinging the rifle across his back and approaching it. "They're only called reindeer if they're domesticated." He explains it to you like you're a child; that attitude irks you so much, but there's nothing you can do about it. He doesn't do it maliciously, not this time, but knowing the things he makes you do, treating you like one makes you feel disgusted. Manipulated. You shrug; a sign you've heard his little lecture, but don't care much about it. 

"I haven't seen one until I moved here from the South either." He confesses, grabbing the carcass by the horns and pulling it through the grass, leaving a red streak behind, splashing the trunks of nearby trees. He doesn't talk much about his life before Eden's Gate, so you listen intently, but he doesn't elaborate any further.

He makes you help him get it into the bed of the truck, tying it down so it won't move around too much. There's blood on your hands now and you feel nauseous, reminded of something you tried to repress, unsuccessfully. That night you were kidnapped keeps coming back to you lately, courtesy of Jacob poking around your brain. You wipe your hands frantically on the sides of your pants, fully aware of Jacob's eyes on you.

He doesn't go for anything big anymore, instead entertaining himself by shooting rabbits and birds and making you retrieve them like a hound; you try your best to pick their warm corpses up without looking too closely at their glassy eyes, feeling sorry for them. 

He spots a rabbit right in front of your eyes, as you both sit hidden in the foliage; he smirks, taking the rifle and pushing it into your hands, wrapping himself around you from behind to guide you. You attempt to protest, but he grabs the back of your neck harshly; your breath hitches as he glues the side of his face to your head, steadying your trembling arms. 

"Do it." He mutters in your ear and you shudder; the red rifle you've first admired ages ago is now in your hands, waiting for its next victim. Your next victim.

He lines up your sights, holding you tightly so you'd both absorb the recoil. 

You jerk the rifle to the right just as you squeeze the trigger, missing the target. It kicks, pressing your back further into his chest; the bullet sprays dirt around, the rabbit takes off, and so should you, seeing the look on his face when he gets up, whirls you around and grabs your jaw with one hand, gripping it firmly and pulling you up to his eye level.

"Explain yourself." 

You would if you could; you mumble something, his hand preventing you from properly forming words. He shoves you, letting you fall through the foliage, branches scratching your face and hands. You gather yourself off the ground with difficulty; something on your right cheek stings. 

"I couldn't." You bring your fingers to your face, poking at your skin until you find a long scratch that makes the tips sticky and red. 

He laughs. "You couldn't? You could shoot a person, but not a damn rabbit." You begin to shake your head; it's the bliss, you say to yourself. It's not you. He slings the rifle over his shoulder, seemingly satisfied with the game he has, much to your relief.

When everything is secure in the back of his truck, before ordering you to get in, he runs his thumb across your cheek, gathering blood and tasting it carefully, mumbling something that sounds like approval. Something about his tone makes you shudder, climbing into the truck and making yourself as small as possible in your seat. 

When you return, he decides you've had enough lazing around and makes you run laps around the hospital until your thigh, your sides and your lungs burn, and your muscles are on the verge of failing; you are dead tired by the time he lets you go to bed, falling asleep without addressing him a single word. 

You wake up when he flinches awake as well, letting out a deep sigh; he's staring at his hands in the darkness, raised in front of his eyes, blinking rapidly, breath labored. You're not sure whether or not you should let him know you saw that, but before you decide, it's too late; he turns his head towards you and sees your eyes half open, watching him. 

He scoffs, a little annoyed, but softens after a while, muscles going slack and brows furrowing.

"Having fun watching me suffer?" He asks, voice rougher than usual.

You shrug, but the truth is his pain brings you no joy; your attitude towards him is conflicted now. You hate him for a lot of things, but all that hate switches itself off once you climb in his bed, replaced by something else. Sympathy, maybe. Pity; although he'd kill you if you ever told him that you pity him. 

"Not really, no." You say, turning on your back and closing your eyes; there was no energy left for that conversation. 

"I would, if I were you." 

It's your turn to scoff, but you never respond. What would you do if you were me, Jacob? - you think to yourself. Did he ever stop to put himself in the shoes of the people he was tormenting? And he had the nerve to ask you if you had a conscience. 

One afternoon he talks on the radio for ages while you wait on the balcony for him to finish. Finally, he doesn't leave information out in the open for you to pick up. Maybe he thinks you know too much now. When he calls for you to come back, his face is conflicted. Something's happened, something he doesn't entirely agree to. 

"Joseph wants us at the sermon tonight." He said, his voice measured. Us? - you echo in your head. 

"What's tonight?" He doesn't reply, but the look on his face is grim enough that you don’t push it any further. 

He drives faster than usual, gripping the steering wheel with more force than necessary; you watch him for a while, eyes moving from his white knuckles around the wheel, to his face, concentrated and slightly concerned, before turning to look out the window. 

Joseph's compound is an island, surrounded by calm, blue waters, and chainlink fence, topped with spirals of razor wire.

You enter the white church, trailing after Jacob; candles burn, littered on a makeshift altar, and it's hot and stuffy, hard to breath. You can feel your face start to sweat as Jacob tells you to sit in the front row of pews, while he joins the other three people standing at the altar. Two men and a woman. His brothers and sister, whom you've never seen before, but heard of from him. 

The shirtless man who speaks now must be Joseph; does he know, or suspect, the nature of your relationship - it feels odd, wrong, to call it that, but you lack a better word - with his brother? Why exactly was your presence required? Your eyes move to the woman, Faith, barefoot, in her pristine white dress, kind smile not reaching her eyes, and then the other man. John looks like a dangerous man, in a whole different way than Jacob does. Unhinged, rather than physically imposing.

Fearmongering. Joseph instills a sentiment of persecution by higher forces, and one of impending doom, the end of all just around the corner. You listen with your eyes on the ground, afraid to look at either of them, not believing a single word.

You think you must have dozed off, the heat and smoke coming from the candles making you hear things. But, as you look around you, you realize you're not the only one who hears it. There’s an unmistakable sound of helicopter blades coming from outside, muffled by the voice of the Father and the walls of the church, but still audible. Still terrifying. The compound stirs, people shouting left and right; Joseph doesn't stop his preaching, ignoring the sounds of a commotion coming from right outside the doors. 

The officers pour into the building and you stand up, alongside many others, to gape at their uniforms and holstered weapons. A murmur of disapproval, growing louder and louder between them. But unlike them, you turn towards Jacob, suddenly faced with an unknown variable. A prospect of freedom, dangling in front of your eyes, just out of reach, and yet you rush to Jacob's side. He doesn't acknowledge your presence; his eyes are heavy lidded, as if the heat was affecting him too, fixated on the policemen that have now reached the altar.

"Behold! The snake in our garden." Joseph's words drown any other noise, an avalanche of pompous metaphors. 

They’re disorganized, arguing amongst each other; you take your mind off salvation and start worrying about them instead. You know what lies deep within the mountains, the sheer amount of guns and military training Jacob's Chosen have heavily outweigh the officers’ 9mm pistols; the sheriff is weathered, the marshal stubborn, and the deputy between them young and uncertain. 

Not a single chance. Jacob towers over you, an unmovable wall between you and freedom. Joseph is talking louder and louder and fear blooms into your chest - he knew this would happen tonight, somehow. An informant, inside the police department - how much power does this man have, in fact? Jacob shakes his head, but it’s not aimed at you; still you decide against your urge to grab his arm and bring yourself closer to him, hide behind him from this sudden intrusion. Out the corner of your eye you see Jacob and John share a knowing look, and you turn your head sharply when John's stare meets yours. Even at first sight, he scares you more than Jacob does sometimes; John wears his madness in his eyes, loud and boisterous. When Joseph tells everyone to leave, Jacob nudges you with the back of his hand, nodding for you to go. You walk with the others, feeling the deputy’s eyes on your trembling chin the whole time. 


	11. Peaches

Everything goes wrong for the officers in the helicopter, as you expected. The prophecy is fulfilled.

The trophy Jacob brings from his hunt is neither of the men you saw in the church, which makes you guess he might have been the pilot, but he dons the uniform too, almost like an accessory with an air of arrogance around him that you know Jacob would love to knock out of his head; his eyes are cast down to the ground, bruises and cuts marring his rather handsome face, but otherwise he’s unbothered, breathing calmly through his mouth. His nose looks broken, but he steels through the pain the best he can. 

Jacob dislikes the man’s entire being, as expected; his shoulders are tense and his fingers twitch, eager to bend him into the shape he desires him to be. His soldier, his puppet.

He makes you walk Pratt - as you saw embroidered on the front of his shirt - to a cell, on the first floor of the compound.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” it’s more a plea than a threat, and you’re aware he can sense the weariness in your voice. He turns, deaf to your words, and your hand flies to the knife at your hip. You were surprised when Jacob took his knife out of the holster and strapped it on you, before ordering you to lead Pratt to his ‘new home’, as he put it. He doesn’t trust you running around with a gun yet. You don’t trust yourself with one either. Pratt puts his hands up in an attempt to de-escalate, his eyes fixed on you like it rings a bell.

“I know your face,” He says, and there’s some sort of pity in his eyes that you could do without. “You’re one of those foreign tourists that got lost in the mountains.” You’re surprised he remembers, you supposed they get a lot of missing tourists in this neck of woods, with the treacherous terrain, the wild animals and, well, the local homicidal psychopaths.

"Did you look for us?" You regret the question as soon as it leaves your mouth; perhaps a part of you wants to know if there was at least a little hope, if they were close. It's the first time you get to talk to somebody from outside, and you don't know what to say. 

“We did. It was a shitshow,” He turns his back on you slowly, allowing your arm to relax and push him forward with the tips of your fingers. “We looked for weeks, the embassy breathing down our necks. We found nothing, not even a trace.” Jacob's men know what they're doing, they’ve had a lot of practice. You scrunch up your nose and make a half amused, half pained noise in the back of your throat, suddenly reminded of things you don't want to think about. He sounds unsympathetic, like your kidnapping was a nuisance that only made his job - his life - harder. This man is either an asshole, or he just tends to not think too much before he speaks. 

"The Sheriff," he continues, then hesitates for a second. The die is cast, however, and there's nothing he can change now. Might as well let you know. "He suspected the cult was at fault, but he didn't want to get involved. He's always been scared, for some reason." A good reason, you think. Whether or not he's trying to shift blame, it doesn't matter now. He's part of it. And now there you are, leading the law enforcement you hoped could save you to the same fate. Prisoners to a madman. 

"What happened to the others, is anybody else coming?" You question him, something you should have done sooner, instead of playing Jacob’s little soldier. 

"Two of us got loose, but I don't know." He doesn't sound optimistic at all, sinking your hopes as well. "The Marshall came alone, no back up. This place has gone full Waco in a crazy short amount of time."

"Waco?" You don't know what that means.

"Crazy cult motherfuckers." He spits out, contempt burning in his voice. "The FBI took them all out, long time ago."

You say nothing, eyes starting to unfocus as you grab his shoulder to steer him towards an unlocked cell. This has happened before, and yet Joseph and his followers remained unchecked, free to obtain land, guns, and people. Corruption and incompetence seem to have become, over the years, an universal language.

“You knew and did nothing.” You spit as he crosses the threshold and you slam the door behind him, locking it before he can do something stupid. Like apologize. Jacob should have let him rot in the cages.

You shake anger out of your head, to think of your parents, your friends' parents. They will probably never know what happened to their children. They would never recover their bodies, they'll have nothing to bury, nothing to mourn over. And when Jacob finally kills you, yours won't either.

“Why are you keeping him inside?” You ask Jacob once you're alone with him again, without thinking much, only slightly horrified at what had just left your mouth. Pratt hasn't done much yet to deserve your sympathy, but perhaps you shouldn't talk about him like he's a dog. You shake that thought; you're too worried about your status, as selfish as it may sound. Jacob seems amused, leaning back into his chair to let his spine crack, closing his eyes with satisfaction. He lets his age show in the privacy of his own quarters, unbothered by your eyes on him. Who are you going to tell anyway?

“Why, is it bothering you?” You shake your head, but he wasn’t waiting for an answer anyway. “He’s not a soldier, he’s weak.” He stands from his chair, stretching his arms above his head and walking towards you. “He’s merely a tool, I don’t need to bother with him.”

He stops in front of you and measures the look in your eyes, tilting your chin with his index finger. You stare up at his chin, unable to withstand his icy gaze; he stripped you of the weapon the moment you walked back in, taking away his red handled knife. You hate to admit it, but it felt good in your hands, like you have finally been given a smidge of trust, of power.

“You came to me.” For a second you are confused, but you remember. The church, the cops, you got scared and ran to him like he was the answer to all of your prayers, despite wanting, deep down, to see all of them kneeling down on the ground, cuffed, on their way to prison like they deserve, and you, on your way back home. You clench your jaw, not wanting to admit it, but it is too late. He knows. He’s inside your head.

“Did you think they would save you?” His voice is soft, deceiving; you see the trap and try to figure out your best way around it. 

“No.” You say. He’s inside your head; the backhand catches you across the mouth and you nick your lower lip against your teeth. It stings, almost immediately, your cheeks flaring up, reddened; he saves physical violence for when he is truly angry, you know that well. 

“You lie with such ease.” He says, a hint of wonder in his voice. "Have you no shame?" He turns and heads towards his bed, letting himself fall unceremoniously on top of the covers without waiting for an answer. Your face does burn with shame, yes, but not because of your lie. Your heart picks up its pace, half indignant, half frightened. 

"Let me do the last trial." You blurt out, to prove your allegiance. His left eyebrow cocks. It has become apparent to you lately that he's been stalling your last trial, and you're not sure why. You have a few guesses: you don't have a sacrifice anymore. He doesn't think you'll make it, and wants to keep you alive for a little longer, for reasons only known by him.

"You almost died." He reminds you. "You're not ready." It's starting to become clear he thinks you might never be ready. 

"I can do it." There's no salvation for you now that things have abruptly spiraled out of control. It's all in his hands. He shakes his head, denying you the chance to prove yourself once and for all. "If you don't think I can then why are you still keeping me, just fucking shoot me already." Desperation takes you over. 

"Keep the volume down." He warns; you were shouting without realizing, spraying blood from your lips. He motions for you to come closer and you obey, despite sensing the danger. You get in the bed anyway; you want to sleep, the events of that day draining you of all energy. 

He’s looking at you odd, you notice just as you are trying to slip under the covers and tangle yourself in them; you freeze, on your side, propped up on one elbow as he reaches out to grab your jaw. You get an instant flashback of what happened that day in the forest, but his grip isn’t as strong as it was then, and there’s no anger in his eyes. He brings your face up, closer, and covers your lips with his; you relax for a moment, before you realize his intention wasn’t to kiss you, but to lap up the blood that was seeping out of the cut on your lip.

You pull back abruptly, shivering; this was the second time he had done that. He doesn’t try again, seemingly satisfied with what he had already gotten, licking at his own lips like a cat who was just done with a delicious meal. You feel sick to your stomach and you pull the blanket over your head, turning away from him. 

The next morning you witness a side of him that makes your bones chill.

He strips Pratt of his uniform himself, in the courtyard, down to his underwear, putting on a show for you and the rest of the cultists gathered in a circle around them, before stepping back and making him drop his own underwear; he hoses him down with ice cold water under pressure. You watch in horror as Pratt whimpers and trembles in the cold, his cheeks tinged red with embarrassment; some of his arrogance has left his face, realizing perhaps the precarious position he was in. You want to stop Jacob; you think about it for a solid minute, before deciding against. Why would he listen to you? He would probably just throw you next to Pratt, put you through the same treatment, punish you dearly for even trying to question his authority in front of his soldiers. It goes without saying that the relative gentleness he shows you in the privacy of his own bedroom will not continue outside of it, especially with so many people around. It was an unspoken agreement between the two of you. 

You avert your eyes, subtly, so he doesn’t notice you’re not watching his display of power anymore; you can still hear it though, the sound of water rushing through the hose, and the screams and yelps that leave the policeman’s mouth. 

Jacob no longer allows you to sit around his quarters doing nothing; things have changed around the veterans center. More prisoners than ever flow through the gates, most of them dying in the cages, however, as they’re too many to keep track of who received food and who received water that day. He’s furious that he’s losing potential soldiers this way, and he gives you a ledger to keep the evidence; spending time around the cages, having to hear the begging of dying men and women grinds at your nerves, making you jumpy and irritable.

He still makes you train, although there’s no trial in sight. He continues to deny you the opportunity. 

Pratt tries to escape the first time Jacob takes you both outside of the compound and into the forest, about maybe a week after his capture. Some prisoners got loose early that morning; couldn't have gotten far, Jacob said, grabbing his rifle and instructing you to bring Pratt. It's getting colder with each day, and this morning you woke up to a thin layer of snow covering the compound. It would have been so beautiful, under different circumstances. When you return to the truck with Pratt in tow, Jacob is petting the giant head of a Judge, another one groveling at his feet; they turn their muzzles towards you and Pratt the second you approach, smelling fear. Jacob ushers them in the truck bed, shoving the deputy in the backseat.

You ride shotgun, feeling more and more agitated with every second that passes; he kills the engine, not too far away from the hospital, and lets the Judges take the scent of the fugitives. They couldn’t have picked a worse day to run off, as every single track is still visible in the fresh snow, every fallen pine needle, every broken branch. 

A scream breaks the silence, making both you and Pratt jump; the Judges got the man by the ankle, dragging him through the snow to where Jacob awaits, finger trained on the trigger. The shot is deafening, making you jump and tense, grinding your teeth together; Jacob’s attention is no longer on his prey, instead looking with an amused glint in his eyes at something going on right behind you. 

You turn your head just in time to see Pratt take off like a spooked deer, zig zagging through the trees.

"Moron," Jacob mutters; he doesn't look too worried, which only serves to confirm what you've been fearing since the beginning: nothing can escape him in these mountains. “Stay.” He orders the Judges and they don’t budge. You frown - why is he not siccing the wolves? - and much to your horror, he sets his rifle down to reach into his pocket, pulling out the dreaded music box. 

"N-," but it's too late, your mind blanks and now it's only you, you and your prey; Pratt runs and stumbles gasping in fear, drained by the effort, until you don't hear him anymore. He's hiding somewhere. 

_Cull the weak_ sings in the back of your mind, as you follow his tracks, getting closer. He launches himself at you suddenly, bringing you down with him, grunting when your body slams into the hard ground. He stands fast, gripping at one of your wrists and you quickly jerk your free arm, pinning it behind you so he can't grab it. He's a second too slow, falling into you, losing his balance for a split second. It's all you need. Your fist slams into his nose, grinning like a maniac when you hear it crunch painfully, hear him scream in agony, dripping blood on your clothes. His nose was already broken, you saw the bruising line it, and vengeance is sweeter now than ever. You grab the front of his shirt and drag him through the snow, ignoring his pathetic whimpering. Weak. Weak little man; the cruelty of your actions, your thoughts, doesn't surprise you anymore. It's Jacob. Inside your head, always, at all times.

"That's enough." Jacob growls, stopping you with a hand on your shoulder; you freeze, letting the deputy drop into the snow. He buries his face in the ground, the cold soothing his broken nose; he leaves stains on the pristine white, red and striking. The Judges whine, eager to taste it. There's a second dead body lying in the snow now, the second prisoner. Jacob must've shot him while you were fighting Pratt. Funny. You never heard the rifle go off. 

"He's never going to learn if you punish him like this." Jacob's face is too calm, too collected to mean anything good. "You need to get the lesson in deeper." 

The dose of bliss he gives him is small; big enough to make him hallucinate, forget his pain, but not enough to last. He's brought to his feet, staggering; you take a step backwards, afraid he's going to fall on you again. Surprisingly, he keeps his balance, vacant eyes staring blankly at your face.

"Jac-", you start, allowing yourself to protest now that it’s only the two of you, plus an out-of-it Pratt, looking through you with a neutral expression, who probably won’t remember a thing anyway. You watch Jacob pull out his knife and hand it to the drugged deputy, but he silences you with a single glance. Pratt cowers, breathing harshly through his mouth.

"I'm not gonna hurt you. I forgive you." You know that's a lie; your blood freezes in your veins, watching the scene with a sense of impending doom. "Skin those deer, would you?" The knife is pressed into his palm, and a tap on his shoulder blade encourages him. You scowl. Deer? You didn't shoot any deer. Bile rushes up your throat only a mere moment later as Pratt kneels into the snow, still warm dead bodies strewn around him. You hate Pratt, you think. Or maybe you hate the fact he represents a system that failed you, failed Jacob, and many others. One that allowed this to happen, allowed broken soldiers to return to empty homes, no help and no sympathy.

You can't bear to watch, turning your head as Pratt sinks the knife into the body of one of the escaped prisoners, blade going in through one of the bullet holes in the man's chest. You feel Jacob glance at you, but he says nothing; for a second you thought he was going to make you look, but for some reason he shows you mercy now. You have a feeling it's because you didn't bolt too when Pratt did. You brought him back. Allegiance. Doctrine beaten so hard into your head your desire to escape is null now. Have you resigned yourself finally? No, it's the bliss, you convince yourself. It's him.

Pratt suddenly gasps, clarity unmistakable on his face. He's awake, while you've grown numb. He stares at his trembling, bloody hands, unable to comprehend what he just did.

Jacob leaves the carrion to the Judges, leading you both back towards the hospital. None of you speak, Pratt still in shock, and you finally feeling sorry for him. He could have had the Judges catch him, instead he chose to use you. Drive a wedge between Pratt and you, maybe - if that was his intention, then it had the exact opposite effect. You sit shotgun again, head leaned back into the headrest, listening to Pratt's soft sniffles; you two are not enemies right now. You can help each other.

You're still sick to your stomach when you stumble back into Jacob's quarters, trembling from the cold, and from disgust. 

"Did you have to do that to him?" You reproach; he grins at you, obviously amused. 

"You didn't have that attitude when I first brought him here." He says, bashful, looking to rile you up. Looking for a way to turn this from playful to violent. "Is he growing on you? Did you start fancying him?" 

The obvious provocation doesn't deserve to be dignified with an answer; you lower your eyes, avoiding his. 

"Would you have preferred if I had made you beat him to death instead?" He continues his berating, feeling around for a sore spot. "Maybe I should've given you the knife, so you can cut his throat too." 

Your hands shake now. He found it; you turn towards him, looking at him with pleading eyes. "Stop, please." You whisper, attempting to hide the trembling by sticking your hands in the pockets of your pants; he notices, scowling in disapproval. You're weak. Getting weaker each day, despite his training, despite his guidance. 

"Sleep on the floor." He orders, visibly irritated. "It'll be easier to think of him without me there." 

Pratt becomes Jacob's new obsession overnight. A new target for his cruelties, cruelties that he had never imposed on you; in a way, you're content, although you feel guilty about it. He's keeping Jacob busy, keeping him off of you. A small bud of fear however bloomed in your chest - could the deputy replace you, make Jacob discard you? This selfishness fuels the guilt as well, but you try to justify yourself; in a place like this, being selfish will give you better chances of making it to tomorrow. 

Pratt is in the courtyard the next day; Jacob put you both on prisoner duty. He's watching you two, you're more than certain, waiting for any of you to make a wrong move. You go through a list of names, without looking up from it, as cultists drag screaming, thrashing, whimpering, or even already unconscious people right past you, to the cages. Associating faces with those names would only make your task more difficult. 

"Is this all of them?" You ask him, folding the list, hoping from the bottom of your heart that there won't be another one. 

"Yes."

Yes, hollow and devoid of any emotion. You scan his face, but he avoids your eyes. What did Jacob do to him? Completely broken, with the air of a kicked puppy, unable to even look you in the eye. His state frightens you; Jacob is capable of destroying a man, a police officer nonetheless. Sure, Pratt looks young, perhaps only a few years older than you, but still, there's not a single trace left of that arrogant prick you saw the night of the crash. The Reaping, as you heard it being called.

Jacob gave him his uniform back after humiliating him in the courtyard; it was likely that was the last time Pratt had seen water, as he was spreading a foul smell around him, of old blood and sweat. His name tag is visible on the front of his shirt.

"Simon?" You guess, pointing at the S in front of his last name.

"Staci." He says, almost a whisper.

"Oh!" It's unusual, but it suits him. 

You heard parts of the message Jacob made him read off a piece of paper, then broadcast it throughout the mountains; Pratt stammered, stumbling over his words, sounding absolutely terrified and unconvincing. He's not going to replace you; he's just a piece of the puzzle. A puzzle you don't really fit, however.   



	12. Green-Eyed Monster

You return from your training, limping, sore and sporting a collection of bruises on your ribs and thighs, freshly acquired by getting mercilessly beaten and slammed into the ground by a particularly vicious Chosen; the man didn't seem interested in teaching you anything, he just needed to let his anger out on somebody, and you happened to be the perfect target. Without the bliss, you feel every single hit that connects, no matter how superficial; you miss the numbness, as crazy as that sounded.

In the prisoners' yard, you walk in on a less than pleasant scene; Jacob stands behind Pratt, his chest pressed into his back, one hand fisted into Pratt's hair. He's pulling his head back hard enough to expose his throat, mumbling something into his ear, and, judging by the tears streaming down the deputy's terrified face, it's not something nice or reassuring at all. 

Lifting his eyes, Jacob spots you, standing frozen in the gateway, and his face splits into a grin for a brief second. He shoves Pratt forward, making sure he lands face first into the gravel below his feet. 

"This moron here can't perform the simplest of tasks." Jacob addresses you, stepping over Pratt's body; your breath hitches, believing for a moment that he was going to stomp on his head. Instead, Jacob walks towards you, towards the exit you're blocking. You move away quickly, pressing yourself against the chain link gate, with no idea what Pratt had screwed up. Probably gave food or water to the wrong person. Jacob doesn't elaborate either, looking at you up and down, noticing the careful and ginger way you carry yourself. He knows you're hurt again, and he's displeased, you can see it on his face.

He leaves and you wait a moment before you rush to Pratt's side, in case Jacob comes back; Pratt - Staci, you remember - sobs, his entire body jerking and rocking, and his hands grabbing fistfuls of gravel and sand. You find yourself taken with a morbid curiosity, wanting to find out what Jacob had told him. You stifle it quickly, to not seem tactless.

Your fingers touch Pratt's shoulder and he flinches away, quickly and violently. Apart from that slash across his nose, the one he got in the helicopter crash, that had almost split his face in two, there's no other sign of violence on his body, not that you can see. His bare arms are spotless, albeit shaking and rather skinny; his shirt had ridden up, exposing his lower back, the skin there tanned and untouched. His mental state, however, was deplorable; Jacob’s signature.

"I'm sorry." You find yourself saying, almost out of reflex - you've never apologized for punching his already broken nose either, you realize. It wasn't you, you try to justify it. It was the bliss. It was Jacob.

It takes you a while to pull him back to his feet; he doesn't recognize at first that you're trying to help him and he fights you, until you get frustrated with his flailing limbs hitting your already sore body and grab the back of his neck roughly. It triggers a cat-like reflex, forcing him to go completely still.

"Are you done?" You ask, harsher than you wanted to, and all he does is whimper.

"Staci, look at me." He doesn't at first, and it takes you shaking him to register the words; his eyes are wide, tinged red, pupils blown, swimming in tears. You almost can't keep the eye contact, but you force yourself to; he needs to get something through his head. "You gotta toughen up. Or else he's gonna eat you alive." 

He looks like he wants to protest, but eventually he calms down and nods, pulling himself back to his feet without your help.

You barely have time to walk through the double doors that evening; on the other side, Jacob was waiting to pounce, the moment you'd walk in. You hear the sound of ripping fabric, and look down to see his hand fisted in your shirt. The fabric is torn from the hem up to your chest, exposing a series of bruises, blue and angry violet. 

"What the hell?" You say, slowly, calmly, reactions delayed by stress and the weariness in your body. 

"What happened?" Jacob interrogates you, his expression darkening for a brief second as he takes in the marks on you, marks he was not responsible for. 

"Training." You reply, attempting to cover yourself up, but the tear in your shirt doesn't stay closed. "Your men wiped the floor with me." Your tone is begrudging, although you anticipate that he will not rule in your favor. 

"Do better." There it is. 

You scoff, giving up on trying to put your shirt back together; you make a beeline for the bed, hoping he'll leave you alone; he follows however, hot and aggressive on your tail.

"Did you console Pratt? Might as well change his diaper too while you're at it." He sneers; he was in the mood for a fight, a fight that you would give anything to avoid. He's been awfully tense lately, and you wear a giant target on your back. 

"Fucking him won't bring you no benefit, so don't waste your time." He continues, sneering at you; it hurts, being disconsidered like that, but you laid your bed yourself.

"I don't fancy him in any way." You retort, sliding under the covers, annoyed now that he kept bringing that up. "Why are you behaving like this, you already had me." 

"Are you implying that I'm jealous?" He barks, forced laughter; he wants to appear amused, but he's not fooling anybody. "I had your body, yes, which didn't matter to me anyway."

You're confused, and frankly, a little offended. What else does he want; he has your body, your mind, your conscience, your freedom. What more does he want? What was he yearning for? 

You look at him as he sits on the bed next to you, close enough to choke you again; his posture is slouched, veins in his temples bulging, pulse quickened. Silently fuming. Why does it matter so much to him if you get close to Pratt? A dumb urge to prove it to him that Pratt means nothing takes you over, and makes your fingers twitch. Your shirt is almost torn off anyway.

You lean over to latch onto his neck with your lips, a hand tentatively sliding down his stomach, towards the waistband of his jeans.

"You're trying this again?" He snorts, pulling away from you and leaving you to slump forward, slouching your shoulders in defeat, and rejection.

"What do you want from me?" You ask, genuinely confused, cheeks tinged red as you somehow find the strength to look him in the eye. He meets your stare and you can see clearly from where you're standing that he doesn't have a concrete answer either.

"The truth is I didn't sleep with you to humiliate you that night." He talks, sighing, and he appears to be sincere. "I dreamed about it. To be fair, I'm not even sure if it was with you, I don’t recall seeing a face." You frown, trying to find some sense in what he was saying. "But it was the first time in ages that it wasn't some sort of nightmare that tormented me. I felt at peace. I woke up and I was craving it, like it could somehow fix me. But it didn't, it can't. I regret it and I can't do it again." You blink, staring at him with a blank expression. 

"And you thought it'd be better to make me feel like a…" You can't say it, but he knows what you mean. "Instead of telling me the truth." 

"It was a pathetic urge. I'm too old to be having wet dreams." He concludes, disgusted, putting more distance between himself and you; you allow it, irritated with him. "And your advances weren't sincere."

That you feel bad about. 

"I'm sorry." You voice your own regrets; that's what bothered him? He had your body, but your mind and soul weren't in it; it was just a strategic move on your part, gone horribly wrong.

"I cannot afford distractions." He says. "I have a task at hand that I simply can't half-ass or abandon." He lies back down, covering his face with his palms; of course, the project. It is all he is interested in, the thing that he wants to focus all of his energy on. Joseph controls his life; you've noticed it on several occasions, how he bends to his brother's will, to the detriment of his health, his emotions, his personal life.

You sink into the mattress, feeling small and unimportant. 

"So, I'm just your therapy dog then? Is that why I'm here?" You mouth off in a bitter tone, after a moment of silence. He must be pondering what to say, judging by the delay in his answer. 

"Pretty much." He replies, laconic. He spares you no pain. "Haven't we gone through this before? You said it yourself, you were scared and needed security, and I needed comfort. That was the deal. What more do you want?" 

You say nothing, sighing deeply; he's right. That was indeed the plan. Is it you who's slipping, starting to get too comfortable? You don't want to ponder the answer, so you close your eyes and fall asleep. 

Pratt looks better when you see him again; apparently he took your words to heart, holding himself with a little more confidence. At least when Jacob wasn't around. He talks and even smiles sometimes, although the prisoner lists get longer and longer, and from time to time, he notices somebody he recognizes.

You never thought of that; the chances that some of these people, the peggies and the prisoners, knew each other before the cult were rather high. Some of them could have even been friends.

In the mess hall, someone lets slip that the tunnels that connect the county to the rest of the state had been blown up, the night of the reaping; he was bragging that he had set the charges himself, loud enough for everyone to hear. When you lift your eyes from your plate, you notice Pratt looking at you; you shrug, attempting to look nonchalant. You're already at peace with the idea that you might never leave this place and you don't need to hear anyone's pity. And clearly you don't need anyone giving you hope.

Jacob is in his room already when you return; you must have lingered too much in the mess hall. You expect the questioning, the outburst, the jealousy, but it never comes. 

Instead, he stares at you for a longer time than usual, and you stare back, with a confused look on your face.

"I want to show you something." He says, standing up from his desk. "Here." He hands you a folder, with a few pieces of paper inside. It's the police warrant for Joseph's arrest. How does he have it? 

_...kidnapping with the intent to harm, based on video and photo evidence...resurfacing of several previously missing persons, including a foreign national..._

Your breath catches in your throat. Your missing report, among others for people you don't recognize. A selfie taken from your social media, your name, age, what you were wearing. Side by side with what looks like a security camera snapshot, peering from between two trees. It's blurred, but it's unmistakably you. Your hand shakes when you shove it back to Jacob, not wanting to see it anymore; you know exactly when it was taken. That day he took you hunting; was that planned as well, so the police would see it?

“Why show me that?” Your voice is meek, starting to tremble. Reality starts to truly sink in, for the first time since the failed arrest that night; nobody is coming for you. The people who were supposed to be your rescue are now either dead, locked up, or tortured into submission. Nobody leaves or enters the county. You're all trapped.

You look up at Jacob, trying to look defiant, unimpressed. He examines you with interest, the corners of his lips twitching up for a brief second.

"I'm trying to figure out what the hell is wrong with you." You scoff; what a waste of time. "Who did what to you that you became so fucking chaotic?"

You shrug; thinking back to your past brought you no pleasure now. You didn't want to remember what you have lost. 

"Nothing. My parents love me, they're good people. I had everything I wanted growing up, I had money, friends, boyfriends, I went to college. No one has ever wronged me, or hurt me, or did anything to me. Mental illness doesn't discriminate, you know."

He looks at you oddly; you feel exposed, shoved under an x-ray machine.

"What did they diagnose you with?" You think he sounds sympathetic for a moment, but you believe it must have been your imagination.

"Nothing concrete. They did some tests, threw some terms at me then asked me to come back. I never did." You regretted that for a while, not getting the help you obviously needed; too late now.

"Why the anger?" He crosses his arms in front of his chest and your eyes are drawn to them, to the wounds marring them. He doesn't seem to mind. "I asked you once if someone ever told you weren't good enough, you didn't answer me."

You stop to think; he feels more like a therapist now that he does your captor, and it rubs you the wrong way.

"Sort of," you start. "I feel like people had too great expectations from me, and I failed to meet them. Like I said, I had everything I wanted. Others with less would've killed to be in my place." You lower your gaze to the floor, starting to regret opening up. What was the point? It would just give him more weapons to use against you. 

"That's what makes you angry? Injustice? Social classes? Seems a little hypocritical." He rolls his eyes at you; he judges you. Pot, meet kettle. "What have you done to help these 'others' you talk about? Cause it looks to me like you were living quite snug inside your safety bubble, am I right? I mean, you were bored enough to hop on a plane with your little buddies to go on a hike on another continent." 

"Just because I live…" You stop, upset that you need to correct yourself. "Lived comfortably doesn't mean I was blind to what was around me." He sneers; he's taking it personally, and you're not sure why. 

"You've only seen it, you never felt it. I had to steal so my brothers could eat." He stops abruptly, looking at you with slightly wide eyes, realizing he had said something he didn't mean to share with you. You recover from the shock quicker than he does.

"Fine." You say. “I had money, yes, but not 'fuck you' money, like your brother does.” You saw multiple sales contracts somewhere in Jacob’s papers, property purchases of exorbitant prices made by one John Seed, Esq. Your family would have to work their entire lives for that kind of money. “Do you also hate him for it? He could have used his privilege to help people.” 

His face darkens, and you flinch, expecting him to hit you. He doesn't, but you can tell his palm is itching; one more wrong word, he dares you. "He is helping people. Everything the project has, it was bought and built with his money." He barks at you.

There is no point in escalating this conflict; there is no point in arguing with him that what he does can't possibly be further away from helping people.

Thankfully, he seems to not want to continue either; he goes quietly under the blanket, and you follow. You've both said too much. 


	13. Losses

At the end of the month, news fall down like lightning and spread like wildfire across the veterans center: John is dead.

One of the deputies is alive, and turned into a one man army almost overnight, taking down Jacob's youngest brother in a, if you've heard it right, dogfight. Strange. 

Pratt gloats; it's quite visible, and damn stupid. He is taken off prisoner duty, sent instead to feed the Judges, and when you see him one morning, on your way to training, one of his eyes is black, swollen shut.

Idiot; you mutter under your breath as Pratt walks past you. He seems to have reverted to his apathetic, scared state, losing the smidge of cockiness he had barely just gotten back; he walks again with his head down and barely manages to get out one sentence without stuttering, whenever one of the cultists barks at him. And it happens a lot, his mind seemingly slipping, forgetting things and needing to go back and forth through locked gates, irritating the guards. It's a miracle nobody had openly smacked him yet. Perhaps that is a privilege Jacob keeps for himself.

Jacob also thinks this deputy's abilities surpass those of a normal, ordinary police officer. I mean, look at Pratt; you think. He could barely take care of himself. Jacob buries himself in reports, works relentlessly, tortures his prisoners and talks on the radio way more than before; planning something. You can barely stand to do your duties anymore; the starving men and women start fighting each other now, for a scrap of raw meat or a sip of warm, green water. And God, the smell makes you almost retch, a mix of old and new body fluids, and you're grateful when you have to go to training; you'd gladly take a beating over having to see, hear and smell the desperation, the dying bodies. 

And what's worse, Jacob makes you pick who goes into the chair now. 

"You know them so well, you must know what each of them is capable of." He says, sneering at you and keeping a hand on your shoulder as you choose, putting on your best apologetic look.

He took John's death hard.

He didn't want to show it at first; you half expected him to not show up that night. You had been lying in bed for a while, nearly asleep when the doors opened and he stumbled in, making you flinch and your breath hitch. At first, you thought he was drunk, by the way he swayed on his feet; but the cult forbade alcohol, and he was a loyal, rule abiding, order following kind of man.

That night was the first time he took the other side of the bed, pushing you against the wall and grabbing at you frantically, hyperventilating and whining like a wounded animal. It was too dark and you couldn't see a thing, but by reaching out your hand and touching his wet cheek, you realized he was crying, heartbroken. He nuzzled into your palm like a dog; a big, red, touch-starved dog; leaning into the comforting cradle. You turned on your side, facing him and he pulled you in, until you were tangled together, your face into the crook of his neck and his into your hair, still weeping.

You were pretty sure he hadn't slept at all that night; when you woke up in the morning, he was long gone.

Now he sits at his desk, again, face hard, frowning at his reports.

You remember John's face, in the church that night; they didn't look much alike. His features were handsome and he was well put together, but his eyes were unsettling. They pierced through you and spoke of cruelty, sadism, manipulation way beyond your silly attempts at controlling his brother. A man who had a way with his words; no wonder his career in law was such a huge success. You scrunch up your nose, unthinking; you've always hated lawyers. 

You've heard he had Pratt's colleague, but you don’t dare to think of what might have happened to her, during her time with him; you doubted he shared Jacob's morals when it came to consent, just by taking one look at the two undone top buttons on his shirt, and the rolled up sleeves. You shouldn't judge people by their appearance, you think, but...

"Whatcha thinking of, so deeply?" Jacob asks, and you realize you've been staring off into space. "I hope Pratt hasn't been putting thoughts into your head." Thoughts of what, freedom? You don't believe in that anymore. "I'd hate to have to knock them out of your head, like I did with him." 

You shake your head; so he did punish Pratt himself for his audacity to hope that help was coming. Well, you think, he shouldn't have been so obvious. 

"This deputy," you start, curious to see what his take on him was, "what do you make of him?"

He looks at you rather suspiciously, but he knows you're no threat. You have no connections. 

"FBI." He says shortly and you frown, taken aback. "Kid came out of nowhere, nobody knows him, has way too much training to be a simple policeman. Take Pratt, for comparison." You burst out in a short laugh, before you see the actual problem and stop abruptly: you're starting to think like him. He looks at you a little puzzled, then smiles. It's short, his face turning back to serious in a couple of seconds, but you saw it already.

"Sounds bad." You say, attempting to empathize, but it's unconvincing. He gets up from his chair, stretching and sighing.

"Bet ya couldn't wait for this, huh?" He sounds a bit different, slipping into a southern drawl you're truly hearing for the first time. It was likely he's always had it, at a lower threshold, and your untrained ears never picked it up until he turned it up. You can't recall.

"He's only one man." You say, attempting to sound nonchalant, rather than flat out denying it. He wouldn't believe you anyway; the truth is, you actually do hold on to a little bit of hope. You remember Pratt's words, the night he was captured; the FBI did take down another one of these crazy cults, a while back. Who's to say it won't happen again.

"What did I say about lyin'?" He asks, forcing your eyes to refocus; he's closer than you remember. What did he say about lying? Nothing, he just marveled at how easy it came to you, and slapped you; just as you are thinking it, his hand comes for you, fisting into your hair and making you jump, startled.

"You're right, he is only one man, so don't even think about it. You'll only disappoint yourself." 

His hand is gone just as suddenly as it came, and your throat is tight, constricting your breath. He turns around too sharply, and hits his thigh on the corner of the desk as he walks past it, knocking it further a couple of centimeters; he swears under his breath, and for some reason, it's funny. Extremely funny - the laughter that takes over you borders on hysterical, your stomach muscles quickly becoming sore. He looks at you like you've gone insane, as you wipe tears from your eyes; the small accident makes his words seem less frightening. He's no longer threatening.

“Are you done?” He doesn’t sound mad, which is a small blessing for you, as you nod; the grief over his brother, the accent, the bumping, the small annoyances, all things that make him seem too human, too real. It was easier to look at him like he was a monster.

You want the wall side of the bed again that night, but he doesn't let you; he feels safe, knowing he isn't out in the open, even though that means using you as a shield. He mutters John's name more often in his sleep now, longing and pained; you've learned by now to sleep through the noises and through the thrashing, unless he hits you or starts screaming his lungs out, frantically trying to rip the covers off himself. 

Days drag by and the cult takes another blow. 

Faith is gone. 

Jacob's demeanor doesn't change much, to your surprise; Faith wasn't truly his sister, but even so, his coldness is unsettling.

"Faith was just a delusion of Joseph's." He mumbles, nearly asleep in his desk chair, his chin in his chest. "A way to make up for past mistakes." He doesn't approve of something in the relationship between her and Joseph, but you never ask why, or what his past mistakes have been. You can draw your own conclusions, how a young, impressionable drug addict can fall in the hands of a smooth talker, self-declared people helper like Joseph. 

He is tired, barely keeping his bloodshot eyes open while he drags himself to bed, leaving his jacket draped over the back of his chair; his shoulders are strained, painful tension holding the muscles taut. John and Faith gone can only mean one thing.

He's next.

He knows it too well; something about the defeated and sad look in his eyes makes you anxious and agitated. Did he lose faith in himself that he could face the deputy and the resistance and emerge victorious? They made quick work of his brother and sister, yes, but to be honest, he was the one with the army, not them. Faith's chaotic angels lacked discipline and attacked at random, furiously, allowing themselves to be tricked and trapped, taken out one by one. They were nothing compared to Jacob's Chosen, and his sleeper agents. 

You need to see his confidence return, to feel calm again; at this point, with the way things were progressing and with how the deputy shot first and never asked questions, salvation was unlikely. You were damaged goods, one of them by now. A bullet to your head was a more possible fate.

You move into his lap, straddling his thighs low, just above his knees, with no intent other than wanting to be face to face. He's too beaten to protest, it seems, and you take matters into your own hands, dragging your fingers down his shirt until you reach the hem.

"I want to see you."

He hesitates, contemplating. You're about to take your mind off it when he moves, grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling it over his head, triggering a memory inside your head. It lands on the floor just by the foot of the bed, forgotten for now.

You don't reach for his pants, knowing he'd just push you away again; instead, you trace his scars lightly with your fingers, like you're seeing them for the first time.

It strikes you how different it feels now; you're no longer threatened, scared, pressured. He doesn't grab at you like his life depends on it, without actually seeing or feeling you. You take your time to brush your lips against the burn mark covering his left shoulder, breathing out hot air against the browned skin. He makes an odd sound in the back of his throat; he feels it too, the change. The shift in the intimacy. It scares him, but at the same time he can't stop.

He doesn't know what to do with his hands; they sit at his sides, twitching lightly from time to time, like he wants to move them but decides against at the last moment, afraid he's too brutish for such delicate movements. You take them in yours, lacing your fingers with his bigger ones, rough under your fingertips. He lets his head fall backwards, leaning against the cold wall, melting inside; you bring one of his hands to your mouth, kissing it gently, your lips lingering for just a second.

He can't take it anymore.

He opens his eyes and his expression is pained, tormented even, making yours change into confusion. He pulls himself from underneath you and turns on his side, facing the wall.

"I let myself be selfish and broke Joseph's rules." He says, so quietly that you have to shuffle closer to hear him. "He knows of this, there's a reason why you were at that sermon." He paused for a second, turning his head towards you. "He wanted us to get married." Your eyebrows shoot up, completely taken aback. "You should be grateful I talked him out of it. Anyone else wouldn't have had that privilege. So quit it, unless you want to be married to someone old enough to be your dad's fishing buddy."

You open your mouth, but nothing comes out; the information that was just thrown at you is now cloying your brain. Marriage. Although you were already stuck, the idea of marriage made the trap seem to close even further around your neck, sinking its iron teeth into your flesh. You almost want to thank him for not allowing that to happen, but you decide against, sliding down to a lying position and curling up facing away from him.


	14. The World is Weak

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a heads up, the rating has been changed to explicit for this chapter:)

_"There's nowhere you can run."_

You catch the end of the radio transmission, just as you push the double doors to Jacob's quarters open; you weren't supposed to be there in the middle of the day, but there's been an incident nobody accounted for.

"What is it?" He puts the radio down, looking at you with heavy-lidded eyes. He hadn’t slept a wink again, agitated, even more so than before, and kept you up all night as well. 

The inevitable happened; the famous junior deputy had entered his mountains. 

"It's Pratt." You say, feeling terribly tired yourself. 

Someone let slip during feeding hours that the deputy was starting to make movements in the area and Pratt overheard, awakening the small rebellious spirit that apparently he still had. A bad move, indeed, as he picked a fight with one of the Judge keepers, over a bucket filled to the brim with meat; in the commotion, the pen gate got kicked open and the nearest man, an older cultist that jumped to break up the fight got his throat ripped open by one of the younger, less trained wolves. The sudden screams and spurts of blood quickly calmed down the spirits; Pratt's face was still sprayed red when you and Jacob got downstairs.

The damage is done already; the old man lies dead with his eyes still open, glassy and unseeing, a puddle of blood growing slowly but steadily underneath his head. Pratt is down on the ground, on his stomach, with a Chosen's boot firmly wedged between his shoulder blades, crying out softly in pain and fear, all rebellion and dignity forgotten.

You turn your head enough to spot an unmoving heap of grey fur, not too far from them. 

"You cost me a wolf and a man." Jacob drawls, calmer than you expected, as the Chosen who shot the wolf let Staci up. It doesn't last long; his knife flashes and in a split second Staci cries again, with a long cut starting from the bottom of his cheekbone and losing itself into his stubble. Jacob grabs Pratt's jaw before he could bring his hand up to his fresh wound and you wince, feeling a phantom hand crushing your own face; your hand flies to your neck by instinct, and Jacob sees it, out of the corner of his eye, his sneer growing.

"Come here." He beckons and you obey, stepping closer; he shoves Pratt into you suddenly and you barely have time to grab him from behind, so he won't slam into you and bring you both down into the ground, at Jacob's feet. He trembles awfully, clenching and unclenching his fists rapidly, trying to deal with the pain as subtly as possible.

"Three nights in the cage." Jacob says, walking up to you and growling in Pratt's face; behind him, your blood freezes in your veins, witness to the venom in Jacob's eyes. "You're lucky I have plans for you." The words make Staci go stiff under your touch, clearly more distressed by his words, rather than feeling lucky. Your chest constricts with an odd jealousy that you swallow down quickly. You're not supposed to feel that way; perhaps your fear of being replaced hasn't fully been smothered. Jacob orders his men to clean up the mess, leaving you to lead Pratt to the cages.

"Why are you such an idiot?" You whisper harshly in his ear, pushing him forward; he accepted his fate, walking as slow as he could, perhaps savoring his last moments of freedom. He's making things so much worse for himself, you think.

"Why are you playing his game?" He retorts; he doesn't fear you, nor respect you, you realize. You've been too soft on him; either that, or he has figured out that something else was going on behind closed doors, and he pities you. Your face burns, irritated and ashamed.

"I'm protecting myself." You mutter; feed the wolf so it doesn't eat you. It's a dangerous strategy, being so close to Jacob; Pratt's one, to try and keep as far away from the wolf as possible, was working somewhat better, but his sudden outbursts of rebellion land him in very unpleasant situations anyway. That, and the fact that he still doesn't belong.

You're soft on him again; you find the least crowded cage and lead him in, locking it behind him and shrugging in helplessness when he turns to look at you. It's his own fault, you say to yourself, to make it better.

The three nights pass and Pratt endures with stoicism; you're almost proud of him.

But the fourth day comes and Jacob's in an awfully giddy mood, which never means anything good. He doesn't tell you why, you hear it from the Chosen in the training yard: he has the deputy at the Grandview. You remember very well what happens at Grandview. 

He's absent the rest of the day, and so is Pratt; somebody else let him out of the cage; which makes you guess his plan for him was just to taunt him, parade him in front of the deputy as his loyal little puppy, although that incident from four days ago said otherwise. There's a bigger picture there, there has to be, that you're not quite seeing just yet.

When he comes back that night, with a satisfied look on his broad face, the breast pocket of his jacket is bulging; you know what's in there, what lies waiting. He sees your gaze and smirks.

"You miss it?"

The anger? No. The oblivion, maybe. You bite your lower lip, unable to take your eyes off it. He pulls it out of his pocket and winds it, looking straight into your eyes as he opens it carefully, too slow for your liking. 

You close them and roll them up, towards the back of your skull, towards the dull ache and the distorted noise.

"Breathe." Comes his voice and you release the air you've been holding in your lungs slowly, before inhaling again through your mouth; the air tastes sweet, thick in your windpipe.

 _Only...only you_ ; nothing else except the emergency lights and him, right in front of your eyes, stalking closer. 

"Why this song?" You ask that question again, agitated; he reaches one hand to wrap it around your forearm and your flesh screams at the contact, pained. You bare your teeth at the invasion, but his growl keeps you at bay, on a tight leash. He's the leader, the law, nothing and no one else above him. Only him. 

_Can...this world seem_...feral, that's how you would describe it; you don't hear all the words to the song, part of your brain still anchored in reality. Unfortunately, your body no longer listens, working purely on animal instincts; you shove at him with your free arm, to get him off, earning nothing more than a bark-like laugh and a tighter grip around your arm, blunt fingernails digging mercilessly in your meat. You whine like a helpless puppy, hoping to awaken something in him. Pity, perhaps.

"Reminds me of better times." He says; his voice is rougher around the edges now, cutting through you. You'd like to ask him what these better times of his were; was he softer then? Loving? Or maybe just a child. You never get to satisfy your curiosity; his teeth close around your neck, above an older, similar scar, barely visible anymore after it healed. They sink and sink despite your surprised gasp, followed by agonized screaming; your hands find his shoulders and push in vain, unable to budge him. He growls around your flesh, freezing you on the spot, too scared to even breathe.

What happened? You were strong in the bliss, made of rage and murderous intent, but now it all faded in front of him. He rules this world, its creator; he is alpha and omega. Only him... _only youuuu_.

Something warm trickles down your chest, your nose filling with the very distinct scent of blood, which makes your heart beat even louder in your eardrums; his arms slip around your waist, pulling you closer into his body and trapping your hands between the two of you. There's nowhere you can run; those words he spoke on the radio couldn't have been more true. You suffocate slowly, pressed into him and held by your throat, unbearable pain making you squirm and whimper, high pitched and pathetic. His jaw unclenches for a brief moment and you sigh in relief, but it's short-lived, as his lips ghost above your collarbone and latch onto it, giving it a chaste kiss before biting down; you cry out and struggle in his arms, but it's a trap you cannot break out of. Never could, and never will.

When he's had enough and pulls back, blood glistens on his lips, dripping down his chin, and your head spins, vision blurring at its edges, threatening to blacken and leave you. His face is close, so close it draws you in and makes you press your mouth against his, licking softly at your own blood on his skin, warm and sweet tasting. He allows you for a moment, before pulling away.

"That's enough." He says, and the music cuts off.

And so do your knees, bringing you down to the floor in a heap, ears ringing and head throbbing; he pulls you up, not even bothering to wipe the rest of the blood, mixed with saliva, off his face. You're going to be sick. 

He takes you across the hall to the bathroom; the sight in the mirror makes you nauseous. It's nothing like the first time he bit you; the skin was torn apart like minced meat, leaking blood and clear liquid and glistening under the cold neon light. You slap one hand over your mouth, to keep yourself from heaving; he sees it and grabs your shoulders, pulling you away from the mirror.

"Take off your clothes." You begin to shake your head, but one glance to his face doesn't reveal any bad intentions; he had turned on the shower and stripped down to his underwear while you were gawking at yourself in the mirror. Your eyes flit to the tops of his thighs, freckled and pockmarked, although less so than his arms and chest, who seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage from whatever it was that he was exposed to.

You slip your shirt off, wincing when the fabric briefly brushes against the wounds; out of the corner of your eye you see him take off his underwear, stepping inside the spray of water. You sigh, keeping your head down as you remove the rest of your clothes and follow, heat engulfing you; you close your eyes and lift your face, letting water drum on your skin, washing away blood, grime and grim thoughts.

When you open them again, his face is the first thing you see; his eyes drink in the sight of his teeth's imprints in your flesh, proud of himself and his handiwork.

Didn't he tell you to quit it? Why are you there, both naked and sharing a shower like you were something else than just a gaoler and his prisoner? You shrink back against the tiles to hide yourself, but his eyes don't wander. 

"It will scar." He states the obvious, deep in thought.

No shit, you think; his hair flattened, sticking to his forehead and a dumb urge makes you reach out and brush it off with the tips of your fingers, painting surprise on his face. You see him swallow, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down before he lets curiosity take over. He pushes you against the wall, away from the water's spray, and you gasp, wanting to beg him to not hurt you again; tiles are cold against your back and his body radiates overwhelming heat, the clash of sensations making you shake.

Your words die in your throat, however; his fingers trace your jaw, moving down your neck and avoiding the bites, although you can see his eyes fly to them from time to time. He trails down your chest until his palm settles on your stomach, the other one counting your ribs on one side.

"You're so damn skinny." He mutters, mostly to himself, bringing his body closer to yours. Who's fault is that, you think, shuddering when his breath ghosts over your cheek; it's going to happen again, you think. He had changed his mind, he'll have Joseph marry you two and then you'll never be free of him. The thought makes you panic and push against his chest; he huffs and pulls away.

"Make up your mind already." He spits out, annoyed; you've been hot and cold from the start, you admit, drawing him in and then pushing him away as soon as you lost the upper hand, afraid of what he could do to do. He was bound to get frustrated with you at some point. 

"What do you want?" You ask, genuinely, looking him in the eye; there's nothing there anymore, no more pride or even desire. Apathy is back, swallowing him whole; he shrugs, turning off the tap and leaving you both to shiver in the cold.

"I don't know." He confesses, his voice more broken than anything else you've ever heard coming from him. 

You are surprised he's not angry when the deputy is rescued, found by Eli and his resistance; so is Pratt, by the way color drains off his face when Jacob finds him and sneers at him, taunting him mercilessly until he's on the verge of tears. There's a bitter taste in your mouth, one that warns you of horrors yet to come.

He's still in a good mood hours later, sitting in his chair with his legs spread open, grinning to himself with his eyes half closed; replaying something in his head, you guess. He looks content, in his own weird way; happy even, and you don't like what it's doing to you. It makes you stare at him. It makes you want to see him like this more often.

"I made up my mind." You say out of the blue, climbing out of bed. He opens his eyes fully, looking at you with an unreadable expression; he knows what you mean, but he thinks it's a bluff. Another attempt to obtain something from him. 

You have to do something to convince him that it's him you want. Something to seal the deal. You walk up to his chair, kneeling down in between his legs. His eyebrows shoot up, regarding you with a conflicted look on his face, before nodding slightly.

"Go on." It surprises you that he lets you, and for a second you do nothing, before your hand finally twitches, going for the button and the zipper of his jeans. He lifts his hips off the chair enough to let you drag his pants and underwear down, letting them sit around his thighs, about halfway down. He smells, you can sense it when your head lolls closer, but it's mild, definitely nothing compared to how others in the compound smell. How the cages smell. He's soft and dry when you grab him, pumping him slowly, without much of a result; your eyes flutter, resisting an urge to look up at him. You gather up as much saliva as you can, sticking two fingers into your own mouth and wetting them, before slicking up his cock, allowing your hand to slide up and down better and pick up the pace, smiling despite yourself as he starts to get hard under your touch. 

His breathing is calm, despite the ministrations; when he's hard enough you run your tongue along him, from the base up to the top, satisfied to hear a small, almost inaudible gasp. You lean harder into his thighs, the tip of your tongue pressing against the tip of his cock for a second before you circle it around the head, wrapping one hand around the base; he doesn't touch you otherwise. You expected him to grab at your hair, shove it down your throat, but he doesn't.

It takes you a while to realize what he actually enjoys is the power; you're doing this just to please him. You could hurt him at any time, should you want to. But you never would. You don't dare to.

Your lips close around the head, making them drag against him as you take him deeper, your mouth now full and tongue flattened down, marveling at how silky smooth he feels; there's nothing smooth about the rest of him, most of his skin rough and textured. You don't want to push your limits and take more than you can; you can already feel him restricting your air flow and you need to pull back before you can continue. It gets easier as a rhythm is established, although your jaw locks and starts to hurt sooner than you would've wanted. You push through the pain however, tasting bitter precum in your mouth, wanting to finish him off. There's no more noise from him, no other movements, which makes you realize, belatedly, that something is wrong. 

You frown as he goes soft into your mouth, without ejaculating, and pull away at the sound of a sigh. You dare look up for the first time since you offered yourself to him; he's not looking at you. His head is thrown back, worrying his lower lip between his teeth, deep in thought, or in anguish, judging by the creases in his forehead. He pulls his pants back up, tucking himself in and standing up, resting one hand on the top of your head like you're a child. Or a dog.

"It's not your fault, you were good." He says as you sit there dumbfounded. He notices your confusion, and you know he'd chuckle, if he didn't look like he was pondering something important. "That night was a once in a blue moon event." He continues. "Don't expect me to be able to get it up every night, or keep it up." You still haven't gathered yourself off the floor. "Do you still think it'll be worth being married to me?"

When you don't respond, he scoffs. "Didn't think so." He says, turning off the lights.


End file.
